Son of Demeter
by Equish
Summary: Memories? Nope. Parents? Not any that he can think of. A world full of gods, demigods, and monsters? That's the gist of it. A kick ass iPhone killing machine in his hand and awesome tree powers? Well, why not? Mokuton!Naruto. Pairing undecided as of yet.
1. He doesn't have any memory

Son of Demeter Chapter 1

Disclaimers suck.

* * *

Naruto panted, planting his hands on his knees as he bent over. How long had he been running from those things? Days, weeks, months, even? He didn't know anymore, the days just kind of all blurred together.

He stood straight again and brought the item of his desire out of the pockets of his tattered jeans—his weapon, and iPhone that strangely enough wouldn't let him call anyone, or text for that matter.

He could already hear the growling of the monster that had been chasing him nearing his location.

He pressed the Home button. Now normally when someone would press the home button on an iPhone, it would light up with the Homepage, or even ask for a pass code, right? His did that, of course, but it also changed into weapons that he thought about when he willed it to do so.

The phone extended and grew in his hands until he was holding a three foot long, leaf-shaped blade of glowing bronze. It fit perfectly in his hands, too, as if it had been designed for him and only him.

It was a xiphos, but don't ask him how he knew what it was, because his answer would be a blunt: "No clue."

He didn't know much these days, including his past, how old he was and where he came from. The only things he did actually know was his name and he was something called a demigod, if what that large one-eyed individual he'd barely escaped from before had said was anything to go on.

The growling grew louder, accompanied by the sounds of footsteps hitting dirt and making their way through grass.

The full moon shone in the night sky and provided the blond with a second source of light, with the first being his own weapon.

For the first time since he'd stopped to regain his breath, he surveyed his surroundings. He was in a small forest clearing, trees reaching as tall as two story houses surrounded him, varying in size and width, with thick branches and healthy green leaves.

He didn't know why, but he felt comfortable, almost relaxed. It was always like that, whenever he was near just a single tree he always had a sense of comfort, as if the trees themselves were willing to protect him for all they were worth.

The growling and footsteps were coming form all around him now, as if his enemy was circling him.

He gripped the hilt of his sword tighter, mentally preparing himself for the inevitable confrontation.

Twigs snapped, leaves rustled and the trees themselves seemed to speak, and he understood them.

_One straight ahead._

He would have probably thanked them, but he didn't know how to _speak_ tree as far as he knew—maybe it was something like, _sway, snap, rustle?_ He pursed his lips, not exactly an appropriate thought to have in this kind of situation, but it wasn't his fault, his mind just wandered sometimes.

Before he could dwell on the way his mind worked, there was a brain-numbing bark to his left and it began.

He banished any other thoughts almost instantly, his survival instinct kicked in and he rolled to the side, just in time to get out of the way of a very large dog. Well, dog wasn't exactly the best description. It was easily the size of a rhino, maybe even bigger, with glowing red eyes and black fur. It's mouth was opened in a snarl, showing off it's row of teeth that Naruto really didn't want to get chomped by.

"Hey, there... giant dog thing." He mumbled lamely and he could have sworn it managed to look offended. That is before it leaped again, it's jaw opened wide, ready to eat him whole.

It didn't even manage to get within a meter of him.

A whistling sound reached his ears, a rush of air went past his face, and suddenly the rhino-sized dog thing had a hole where it's red eyes had been. It stood there for a few seconds, seemingly shocked, before it exploded into golden dust, managing to reach him even with the distance that was between them.

He looked himself over and grimaced—it had somehow managed to get every single bit of him, face, shirt, jeans, converses, the whole lot. "Ugh, gross." He complained before spinning around and glaring at the direction where the arrows had come from. The trees moved around, allowing the moon light to seep in and reveal the location of the one responsible. "What the hell was that for?!"

She was around what he predicted his age was, twelve, maybe thirteen. Her silvery-yellow eyes glared straight back at him, her auburn hair was tied into a ponytail and her beautiful face that glowed in the moonlight was twisted in annoyance. She wore a knee-length tunic, held a silver bow in her hands and was bare-foot. "I just saved your life, _boy!_"

He stomped his foot childishly at the way she'd phrased the word as an insult. "I didn't need saving, _girl!_"

"What is wrong with you?" She scowled at him. "Usually when someone saves your life you say _thank you!_"

"Like I said, I didn't need saving. And look-" He gestured to himself. "-you splattered golden stuff all over me!"

She snorted and muttered. "You sound just like that damnable Goddess of Love or one of her children."

He huffed and turned away, glaring into the distance. The trees made way for his sight, letting him see further into the dark forest. He didn't know why he was so annoyed, maybe it had something to do with the fact that he'd been on the run for weeks and weeks from monsters with no memories.

The only reason he'd survived so long was that he'd been listening to a voice inside his head—a soft, gentle, caring tone that he guessed mothers used with their children. He did always wonder why it vehemently insisted on him having cereal for breakfast all the time, though.

_"Having cereal in the mornings is vital to an everyday routine."_ The voice would say sternly, full of confidence and certainty, before it was followed by. _"Do you not want to grow up and become big and strong, young man?"_

He sighed, he probably shouldn't have taken out his frustrations out on her, she had killed the monster that wanted to eat him whole after all. He turned back in her direction. "Who are you, anyway?"

She wrinkled her nose in displeasure, as if having to say her name to him was an insult in itself. "Artemis."

Something clicked in the back of his brain and he jumped on it—a memory? No, unfortunately not. Just recognition of the name. "You mean like the Goddess of... what was it? Moon and the Hunt?"

Her face twisted in annoyance again. "Those are two of my domains, yes."

"Yeah, I kn-" He stopped in the middle of his sentence and began blinking at her. Did her lips curve in amusement? Maybe. "You mean that you're... a..." His throat felt dry, suddenly aware of the power basically rolling off the girl.

"A goddess." She finished for him, seemingly becoming amused at the way he was having trouble forming words when he had plenty of them before. "And you, Naruto Uzumaki, are a demigod."

He swallowed. "Yeah, I've been called that before." He knit his brows together, frowning. "What _is_ that exactly?"

"You'll find out soon enough." She said dismissively.

"Why are you here then?"

"Why?" She looked up at the moon, all the stars and constellations. "A request, a favour, or maybe I'm here just because you're near my camp." She brought her gaze back down to his level. "Either way, you don't belong here. You belong at Camp Half-Blood."

"Okay..." He said. "Do you have a map or anything? I mean, you know, directions might be nice."

"There won't be a need for a map." She said, walking up to him, bow still grasped in her hand. "My reasons are not for you to hear right now, but I'll aid you in getting there this once. Maybe, just maybe, you'll be able to regain your memories there."

"How do yo-" Too late, she was already upon him. She pressed her index finger to his forehead and he was out like a light.

* * *

Naruto woke up with a jolt.

His hands went over his body, making sure everything was intact. It was, thankfully. He no longer had the golden dust on him either. He sniffed himself and recoiled—_yuck!_ When was the last time he'd had a shower? His trusty weapon was in his in his pocket, once again in the form of an iPhone.

"Alright..." He muttered, getting to his feet and letting his converses sink into the wet and soggy sand beneath him. "I just met a goddess, had a small argument with her, and then got sent here. Awesome."

Naruto looked around. He was on a beach, normally that would make any kid around his age excited, but he wasn't. Lightning cracked in the sky, the clouds were dark and stormy, rain poured down loudly and drenched him while twenty foot waves crashed into the sand not all that far from his position. In the distance, he could make out a set of cabins that were half sunken in the dunes of sand.

There were no trees around—at least not any that were close enough to give him any information, anyway. He pursed his lips and decided to make his way over to the cabins, maybe there was someone there who could help tell him where he was, or at least where this Camp Half-Blood was.

His eyes scanned the cabins, deciding on which one to knock on. He started walking forward, a faint whisper in his ear telling him what one. He'd come within knocking distance of the door by the time another thunderclap boomed.

His hand went up, but it was stopped, he glanced to the side to see someone holding his wrist, giving him a look that was a mix between cautious and panicked. That someone had curly brown hair, brown eyes, and a set of goat legs—hooves and all. He also kinda smelt like a wet barnyard animal. "Who are you?"

Naruto arched an eyebrow. "Who are you?"

The _satyr's_ nose twitched, as if he had smelled something. "Not important right now." He said quickly, dropping his wrist before knocking on the door, loudly.

When the door opened, a middle-aged woman with long, straight brown hair, blue eyes, covered in a nightgown was revealed. Her expression was terror-stricken, but not because there was a teen standing out the front of her door in the middle of the night with a satyr.

"I've been searching all night." The satyr said, directing his words further into the cabin, his expression not changing in the least as the woman looked back inside of the cabin. "What were you thinking?

"Percy!" She shouted so that she could be heard over the thundering rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

A boy around Naruto's age came into view, with jet black hair and bright sea green eyes, and he seemed frozen on the spot.

"There's not much time." The satyr said, his eyes flickering from inside the cabin to behind him. "It's behind me, we have to leave as soon as possible. All of us."

Naruto felt like he was intruding on something, but he also got the feeling that when the satyr had said _all of us,_ he'd meant him, too.

The woman—who he guessed was this Percy's mother—turned around, faced who he presumed was her son, and spoke in a stern voice. "Percy. Tell me now."

He pushed back an amused smirk as Percy stammered things out about old ladies at a fruit stand, and someone called Ms. Dodds.

Percy's mom just stared at him, her face deathly pale. She grabbed her keys, and threw Percy his rain jacket. "Get to the car. Everyone. Go!"

Percy gave the blond a strange look as they all ran for the Camaro, but he ignored it, he didn't exactly know why he was there, either.

Had this been what Artemis was talking about when she said she was aiding him? Taking a glance at the satyr's hooves, he got a gut feeling that it was what she had meant.

When they'd all piled in the car, Sally—Percy's mom's name according to the satyr, Grover—slammed on the gas. Tires screeched and they were soon tearing through the dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed at the wind-shield.

"So..." Percy began, his eyes going back and forth between his mother and Naruto. "Who are you?"

"Naruto Uzumaki." He glanced around the Camaro unsure of what to say. "And.. um... I'm looking for a camp."

Percy studied him for a while before his eyes rested on Grover. "Do you two know each other?"

"Never met him before tonight." Grover admitted, looking at the rear vision mirror every once in a while. Naruto nodded along with him to show his agreement. "He needs to come with us though, Percy."

"Okay..." Percy shifted on his seat, his eyes going back over to Grover. "You and my mom know each other?"

"Not exactly. We never met in person, but she knew I was watching you."

"Watching me?"

"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend." He added hastily. "I am your friend."

While Percy and Grover talked to each other, Naruto looked out the window. The trees were swaying in the way they did when they were trying to tell him something, but the Camaro was going too fast for him to understand them.

He furrowed his brows together, trying to concentrate on them to hear whatever they were saying, but it was no use.

A weird bellowing noise rose up behind them, snapping Naruto's attention away from the trees.

"Percy." Sally said. "There's too much to explain and not enough time. We need to get you to safety."

"Safety from what?" Percy asked. "Who's after me?"

"Oh, nobody much." Grover said, looking a bit miffed about something. Naruto glanced between the two and saw the slightly sheepish expression on Percy's face and idly wondered if he'd made a comment on the satyr's legs. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

The name Hades sprung to Naruto's mind at the title. He didn't know why he knew that name, but he did, as if he'd been told about Hades before, just like with Artemis and how he knew that Grover was a satyr. He balled his hands into fists, it was so frustrating not knowing anything about himself.

Sally made a hard left. They swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and _pick your own strawberries_ signs on white picket fences.

"Where are we going?" Percy asked.

"The summer camp I told you about." Sally's voice was tight. "The place your father wanted to send you."

Naruto perked up at the word camp but didn't say anything, it seemed like a conversation Percy and Sally needed to have on their own and he didn't want to butt in.

"The place you didn't want me to go."

"Please, dear." Sally begged, not taking her eyes off of the road for a second to even glance at Percy. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."

"Because some old ladies cut yarn."

"Those weren't old ladies." Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to... when someone's about to die."

"Whoa. You said 'you'."

"No, I didn't. I said 'someone'."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Stop bickering already, Mrs. Jackson's trying to drive." He gave Percy and Grover a stare, and the two of them snapped their mouths closed. "Everything will be explained when we reach this camp, hopefully. So just try and settle down."

Sally pulled the wheel hard to the right, and Naruto got a glimpse of the figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind in them in the storm.

Percy must've noticed it too, because his mouth went to open, but he kept it shut, probably not wanting to distract his mother while she drove.

"We're almost there." Sally muttered to herself in what Naruto guessed was some kind of self reassurance. "Just another mile. Please. Please. Please."

Outside, there was nothing but darkness and rain, and it spoke of how Naruto felt—empty and depressing. He brought the iPhone from out of his pocket and began to spin it around horizontally, using his thumb and index finger. It was the only thing he had, really. The only thing he could rely on.

He remembered waking up in that field of wheat, no memories of who he was or where he came from. He remembered being forced to run away from that same field by monsters, then being chased by more monsters for the weeks that followed.

He remembered the first night he'd heard the voice speak to him, comforting him as he leaned against a brick wall in an empty alley. He remembered being forced to steal food, clothes, and other necessities. He'd hated the bitter feeling every time he'd stolen something, but he kept doing it as he knew it was his only way to survive.

He snapped out of his thoughts when he saw a blinding flash, followed by a jaw-rattling boom!

He felt weightless, as if he was being crushed, fried and hosed down all at the same time and he felt his iPhone slip out of his grip. Reality came crashing down back on him and he grunted while lifting his head from the headrest it had slammed into. He heard Percy mutter an "ow" as he peeled his head from the back of the driver's seat.

"Percy!" Sally shouted.

"I'm okay..."

Naruto groaned and rubbed at the back of his head—great, just what he needed, a good ol' brain rattle. He looked out the window that had a sizeable hole in the shape of a star in it and saw that they were still in the totally not exploded Camaro. They'd been driven into a ditch, apparently. The driver's side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof was cracked open like an eggshell, allowing the rain to pour down on them.

Lightning. He'd felt something similar before, albeit to a much smaller degree. He didn't know when he had though, it was like a fuzzy feeling at the back of his head, as if someone had just shoved a bunch of wool in his brain to cover it.

His eyes widened and he looked frantically around the crashed Camaro for his iPhone. He took the seatbelt off, ignoring Percy shouting Grover's name, and bent down to check under the seat in front of him and the floor. Nope, not there. He came back up, looked over Grover and Percy's form, in the front, but ended up with the same results.

He gritted his teeth and looked at the broken window meaningfully just as Grover groaned out. "Food." He tried to put his weapon out of his mind and concentrate on the living beings. Sally and Percy seemed a little shaken up, but fine over all. Grover, however, was slumped over with blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth.

"Percy." Sally said. "We have to..." Her voice faltered.

As Percy looked behind them, Naruto paid attention to the trees again. They were swaying and their leaves rustled, telling him things that he could now understand as the Camaro wasn't on the move.

_Run. He-_. Whatever the tree was telling him was cut off when there was a flash of lightning in the sky and it was suddenly lit up in a blaze of fire that probably wouldn't last long in the rain.

Another tree continued. _Coming_.

Percy swallowed almost audibly. "Who is-"

"Boys." Sally interrupted seriously. "Get out of the car. Now." She tried slamming herself against the door, but it wouldn't budge against the mud. "Do the two of you see that big tree?" Another flash of lightning lit up the sky, and the two caught a glimpse of an absolutely huge pine tree at the crest of the nearest hill. "That's the property line, get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you're coming too." Percy insisted. Naruto saw that her face was pale and had a sad look in her eyes. "No! You're coming with us! Naruto, help me carry Grover."

Naruto didn't argue. "Yeah, alright." He slammed his door open as it wasn't stuck in the mud and slid out, bringing Grover's body with him before slinging the satyr over his back so he was carrying him piggyback style. "Well, come on then, we don't have all day, or you know, night."

"Food!" Grover moaned louder than before and Naruto felt like rolling his eyes.

Percy scooted his way out of the car and beckoned his mother to follow. "We're all going together. Come on, Mom."

As they stumbled up the hill, Naruto was offered by both Percy and Sally to let them take some of Grover's weight, but he refused, saying that Grover was actually pretty light, which was the truth. He glanced over his shoulder and over the satyr's body, and he was able to make out what was chasing them for the first time.

He was seven feet tall, his arms and legs looked like they belonged on body builders, and his skin had veins all over it. The only clothing he wore was a pair of bright, white underwear that made him crack a small grin. Coarse brown hair started at his belly button and ascended until it reached his shoulders, only getting thicker and thicker the higher it was. To finish it off, there were two large horns on his head.

"Man-Bull?" Naruto mused aloud.

"Pasiphae's son." Sally corrected.

"He's the Mino-" Percy began but was swiftly cut off by his mother.

"Don't say his name. Names have power."

The pine tree was still too far away—a hundred yards uphill at least.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

"Be quiet and stay asleep, Grover." Naruto said lightly.

Percy turned his head around to glance back at Man-Bull. "What's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

Naruto followed his example and saw the bull-man, or Man-Bull, whatever floats your boat, hunched over the Camaro, sticking his face through the windows and sniffing.

"His sight and hearing are terrible." Sally informed them. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."

Naruto grimaced at the information, last time he'd checked, he stank, horribly.

As if on cue, Man-Bull bellowed in rage. He picked up the Camaro by the torn roof, raised it over his head, and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for around half a mile before coming to a stop. Naruto was about to look away and keep up with his task, but the Camaro suddenly exploded and grabbed his attention for a few seconds.

"Ah, man..." Naruto grumbled, idly aware of Percy looking like he was trying not to smile at the Camaro's destruction. "I so should have looked away from that."

"Boys." Sally said, dragging his attention away from the car. "When he notices us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way—directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do the two of you understand?"

"Got it, Mrs. J." He gave her a mock salute and confident grin. He was actually feeling pretty confident, too. If it wasn't for the fact that the trees had told him to run, then he'd be down there introducing Mr. Man-Bull to the underside of his converses. He'd killed monsters that had tried to eat him up before, so why would this be any different?

Grover's body started falling off and he replaced his hand where it had been before to keep the satyr steady.

"How do you know all of this, Mom?" Percy decided to ask.

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."

"Keeping me near you? But-"

Another bellow of rage from Man-Bull cut Percy's sentence off. Naruto glanced back again to see the monster stomping up the hill in their direction, apparently he'd smelled them. A slight weight suddenly appeared in the pockets of his jeans, but he ignored it in favour of concentrating on the pine tree that was only a few more yards away.

His legs felt like they were on fire, his hands felt numb, and just to add to the shit pile that was his life right now, Man-Bull was probably just a few seconds away from pounding them into the earth that had turned muddy from the rain.

Sally glanced at the tree gravely, as if it was her last stop. "Keep going!" She urged.

Naruto felt his heart race, Artemis had said that there was a chance he'd be able to regain his memories at Camp Half-Blood. He had no idea whether that was where they were going or not, but it was the only thing he had to go on.

He hadn't had a real reason to live ever since he'd woken up in that wheat field, but now he might be able to get his memories back, which would lead to him getting back to whatever life he had beforehand. He had _something_ to make him want to move forward.

"Move!" As soon as the panicked words left Sally's mouth, both Naruto and Percy jumped sideways and rolled along the muddy ground. Just in time too, for as soon as Naruto felt his body impact with the earth, Man-Bull thundered past them and slammed head-first (horn-first?) into a tree.

Naruto leaned Grover against a nearby tree before standing up fully; Percy followed example and stumbled to his feet. Man-Bull managed to pull his horns free, albeit with some difficulty, but instead of turning towards him and Percy like he'd expected, Man-Bull rounded on Sally who had jumped to the other side.

So they were separated—a half-man, half-bull in the middle, blocking them.

Sally looked at them, she looked scared, but resolved at the same time. "Run!" She yelled at them while backtracking down the hill. "I can't go any further. Run!"

Naruto didn't know why, but the idea of him running in this situation just didn't sit well with him—which was pretty weird considering he'd been running from monsters for a while.

Man-Bull grunted, pawing at the ground. He was eyeing Sally who was trying to get his attention and lead him away; it worked, too, as Man-Bull stormed down the hill towards her.

Naruto ran after him, but it didn't take long for him to realize that he'd taken too long to react—the monster was already directly in front of Sally. She sidestepped in an attempt to dodge his charge, but he'd apparently learned his lesson, and his hand shout before grabbing her by the neck and lifting her up.

Naruto put more effort into running down the hill, trying not to slip and tumble. He heard Percy shout from behind him—much closer than he'd expected. "Mom!"

He didn't dare look behind him as it would probably make him trip and have a nasty tumble, so he instead kept running even though he knew he wouldn't make it in time. Percy was running almost right beside him by now, probably being fuelled by the fact that his mother was in danger. Naruto didn't know how, but he felt he could relate—as if he'd been in a similar position where a loved one could die.

Sally looked at them, or more specifically, her son Percy, and managed to choke out one final word: "Run!"

It was a pretty simple word and could be used in many different situations, but for this one, Naruto felt that Sally wanted them to run back up the hill and away from her.

With an angry roar, Man-Bull closed his fists around Sally's neck, and she dissolved, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection.

Percy was running beside him now, his sea-green eyes bubbling with anger. Naruto felt a pang of guilt stab him in the chest—if he'd reacted, faster then Sally might not have combusted into a golden light, if he-

_'Concentrate.'_ He told himself, directing his eyes straight towards Man-Bull who looked ready to meet them both in a head-on charge. _'Beat him, get to this Camp Half-Blood place, then find a way to get my memories back.'_

What could he do though? His weapon was missing, which meant he had no way of killing the monster. He had no idea what Percy was capable of either—if anything at all.

Despite his doubtful thoughts, he found that his legs just kept moving forward, as if his body was telling him to just wing it, and so he did.

Man-Bull charged, thundering towards them with the clear intent on repeating what he'd done to Sally. The trees the monster went past swayed, their branches got in his way, and Man-Bull swatted them away without breaking his sprint.

When Man-Bull had come within range, Naruto used the hill's incline to his advantage. He pushed his body straight onto the ground and slid along the muddy earth, going straight for the monster's legs, using all of his momentum and weight to slam into Man-Bull's right leg.

Percy, though, had apparently thought it was a good idea to jump up and had somehow managed to wrap his legs around Man-Bull's neck.

Man-Bull tumbled, doing a belly-flop straight into the ground. Naruto slid past for another two feet before managing to stand back up while Percy's entire body was rigid with surprise, like he couldn't believe what had happened in the past few seconds.

Percy still had his legs tangled around the monster's neck, but that didn't last long as Man-Bull regained his senses, and began standing up while furiously trying to buck Percy off like a rodeo bull. Naruto had to give Percy credit, he did manage to stay on for a few seconds, using the horns as a way of not falling off. Unfortunately, all good things came to an end, and Percy was soon sent soaring away, a snapped off horn in his hands.

Man-Bull screamed just as Percy slammed into the grass. He turned his one-horned head in the direction Percy had landed, pawed at the ground, and charged.

Even if Naruto had started running earlier he wouldn't have made it. However, he didn't feel the need to actually run; something clicked in the back of his head. His hands came up in front of his chest and began running through different gestures as if he'd run through them hundreds of times before—he felt like he _should_ know what they were, but he didn't.

As soon as his hands had stopped moving, he felt something rush through him, and the ground rumbled. Near Man-Bull and Percy, _very_ thick wood planks rose out of the ground and wrapped the monster up in a cocoon-like structure. Man-Bull turned his head to glare at Naruto before he bellowed with anger and defiance.

Naruto had no idea what he'd just done—he'd never done it before. He didn't think on it for very long though, he had to take advantage of the monster's incapacitated state. He ran towards them, reflexively reaching into his pocket for his iPhone. He almost had a heart attack when he found that it was actually there, as if it had never even left his side.

How it had gotten into his pocket? Naruto had no clue, but it didn't matter right now. He pressed the Home button, and he was soon holding the three foot long, glowing bronze blade that he had earlier that night.

Percy realised it was time to press the attack, too. He gripped the knife-sized, broken horn firmer and broke out into as much of a run as he could manage.

Bull-Man wasn't idle. He thrashed around, tearing bits of wood away chunk by chunk. It was fairly obvious to Naruto that If he or Percy didn't get to him in time, then the monster would be free again real soon.

Naruto tried re-enforcing the wood as he ran. Man-Bull grunted as the wood around him tightened, as if it was trying to squeeze the life out of him. It only managed to halt his progress briefly, and before long he was back to trying to escape his pseudo-prison.

The thunder and lightning hadn't let up even a little bit. Rain still poured in the area, getting into Naruto's eyes.

Naruto and Percy reached the monster at the same time. Naruto raised his sword high above his head before slashing diagonally across Man-Bull's back, leaving a nice, long gash running from his right shoulder to his left hip. Instead of exploding like the monster earlier that night had, Man-Bull began to crumble apart in golden dust, like a sand castle that was coming crashing down.

Within no time at all, Man-Bull had been reduced to nothing more than a left over horn and golden dust, which was soon blown away by the wind in chunks.

Percy was still holding the horn, only it was in a way that showed he had stabbed it somewhere in Man-Bull's rib area. His eyes were unfocused and dull, like he couldn't find it in him to concentrate on anything. His entire body was trembling, and his expression was one of grief.

What was left of the wood receded back into the ground, leaving no trace of it behind, as if it had never been there in the first place. The rain had stopped falling, and the thunder was only rumbling off in the distance.

Percy lost his balance, tumbling forward. He probably would have face-planted into the muddy ground, but Naruto made sure to grab him and sling an arm over his shoulder.

"Woah there." Naruto said. He felt like saying _Rough night, huh?_ but he thought better of it.

"Grover." Percy muttered, trying to stand up straight, but only managing to put more of his weight onto Naruto. "We need to get to Grover."

The satyr was still leaning up against the tree Naruto had put him up against. When he and Percy had stumbled over, he moaned. "Food!"

Naruto rolled his eyes and Percy got out of his grip, staggering over to Grover. He grunted, slinging one of Grover's arms over his shoulder while Naruto followed suit with the other side.

They made their way back up the hill, their shoes sliding along the mud and almost making them trip at points. Percy looked dead on his feet, he was breathing heavily and his eyes were half-closed, as if he wanted nothing more than to just sleep.

Naruto wasn't feeling the same, he still had plenty of energy left in him. His sword was still gripped firmly in his right hand, prepared to take out any other monsters that decided to show up.

Once at the top of the hill, Naruto could see the lights of a farm house, and they walked towards them. He blanked everything out with the exception of Grover, Percy, and the lights.

It wasn't long before they reached a wooden porch. Upon arrival, Percy collapsed and rolled onto his back, looking even more exhausted than before.

Naruto sighed and plopped Grover down, laying down on the porch with them before closing his eyes. He wasn't exhausted physically, but mentally. After so many weeks of being on the run, he was actually resting without worrying about what monster wanted to eat him next. His iPhone shifted in his hands, transforming back into a phone.

The sound of hooves clapping against wood reached his ears. Naruto thought that maybe Grover had woken up, but when he opened his eyes he saw a man's face, he had thinning brown hair, bushy eyebrows, intense brown eyes and a scruffy, brown beard.

Naruto looked straight into the man's eyes. "Hey."

The corner of his lips twitched, as if he was amused. "Evening."

"One of them." A girl's voice this time, coming from beside the man. "One of them has to be."

"Silence, Annabeth." The man said. "They're both still conscious. Bring them inside."

* * *

**Chapter 1 done!**

**Haven't seen a crossover story where the main character is a child of Demeter, so I thought why not? Also, I know that this chapter is almost the same as the one in cannon, but I needed**** it to be that way.****  
**

**About Naruto's weapon? All I'll say is**** take the sentence of Naruto thinking of whatever weapon he thinks of _very_ literally.**

**Now that that's out of the way, I guess I can move onto the pairing. It'll probably **_**eventually**_** be**** Naruto/Artemis, haven't completely decided yet though; might change it to Annabeth or Calypso. Or even Hestia, Athena or Reyna(No idea how I would), who knows. What I can say for certain though is that it'll be a monogamous pairing and Thalia most likely won't be paired with him._  
_**

**Also, later on, characters from the **_**Narutoverse**_** are going to have quite a big impact on the story.**

**The only other thing I will say is that the one who brought Naruto into the **_**PJO**_** world probably isn't who you think it is (It might be), and the one who stole/wiped his memories might not be who you expect.**

**When will I update? However long it takes to finish the next chapter, a week, maybe two.**

**A review would be greatly appreciated a****nd... uh, yeah... Bob the Titan is a boss.**


	2. His parent is Demeter

Son of Demeter Chapter 2

Disclaimers suck grapes.

* * *

The first time Naruto yawned for the day, he got a spoon-full of deliciousness shoved straight into his mouth. Whatever it was, it was amazing and reminded him of the breakfast he'd had about a week ago—cereal and Oreos. The voice that sometimes spoke to him seemed both pleased and annoyed when it found out.

He swallowed, allowing the delicious substance to go down his throat. He forced his eyes open, blinking a few times to get rid of the annoying blur that usually came with waking up.

He was sitting on a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. His clothes had been washed, apparently, as they were no longer mattered with dirt and didn't stink so bad that it would put a skunk to shame. A small table was beside him with his iPhone and a horn that strangely reminded him of the ones Man-Bull had.

Next to that was a girl around his age. She had curly, blonde hair a similar shade to his own spiky version, stormy grey eyes, and a tan complexion. She wore a pair of jeans and a bright orange T-shirt that read: _CAMP HALF-BLOOD._

"Good taste." Naruto remarked before doing a double-take on what was written on it.

She put the spoon down on the table next to the horn and gave him a once over, like she was looking for the best way to take him down. "Your eyes are blue." She said it in a way that told him they weren't supposed to be blue. He must have been giving her a weird look, because she rolled her eyes. "They were brown last night when you got here."

Naruto opened his mouth to rebuff her statement, but closed it a second later. As far as he knew, his eyes were always blue and they'd never changed colours. "That's... nice to know." Instead of letting the conversation fade, Naruto forced on a smile and held out his hand to her. "Naruto Uzumaki, by the way."

She hesitated before bringing up her own hand and gripping his. "Annabeth Chase."

Instead of her grip being soft and gentle like Naruto had expected, it was firm and strong, like she'd spent a lot of time gripping the hilt of a weapon. Once they'd let go, Naruto spoke up, his eyes glancing around at the scenery. "So, where am I?"

"Camp Half-Blood." Annabeth had looked like she was going to open her mouth to reply, but she didn't get a chance when the voice that spoke had injected itself into the conversation, and Naruto idly noted that it was the same one from the night before. The bearded man was on a wheelchair, well, wheeling up to them.

"Chiron." Annabeth greeted.

A small smile was on Chiron's face. "Good morning, Annabeth." He said before glancing at Naruto. "It's okay now though, I'll take it from here. Why don't you go check on our other guest instead?"

Annabeth nodded a little reluctantly before leaving the two to their own devices.

Chiron studied Naruto like he was trying to figure him out. Naruto shifted in his seat, feeling a bit awkward. "Uh, nice weather?"

Chiron apparently snapped himself back to reality. "My apologies." He said before giving a bitter chuckle. "It's just that you reminded me of an old friend."

"Oh yeah?" Naruto settled down and gave Chiron a curious look. "Who was that?"

"Another time." Chiron waved him off. "For now, we'll just stick with the simple things."

Naruto frowned, but didn't push it—he needed answers about Camp Half-Blood and who he was, not answers about Chiron's old friend. "What is Camp Half-Blood?"

"A safe haven, a summer camp, somewhere to get stronger, but most consider it a home for people just like you." They way Chiron said _you_ made Naruto think he was different—an outcast from the rest of the population.

"Demigods, you mean."

"Mainly." Chiron agreed. "There are others—satyrs, for example. But that's not important."

"Alright, so it's somewhere people like me live. Great. Got it." Naruto frowned, fiddling with his hands as he didn't really know how to phrase his next question. In the end though, he just decided to be completely blunt. "Who am I?"

"Who are you?" Chiron mused. "That's a question we all want answered, isn't it? But I suppose your case is a bit different." He sighed. "Unfortunately, I'm unable to answer that question. It's something that you'll need to find out."

There was a strange glint in his eye, like he knew something, just not everything. Naruto swallowed back the bitter feeling that rose in chest. He didn't lose hope though, Artemis had said he might get his memories back after he'd gotten to the camp, so there was a chance and he sure as hell wasn't going to let it slip by. "Next one then. What's a demigod, exactly?"

Chiron didn't look very surprised at the question, well, he actually looked like he had expected it. "Why don't we take a walk?" He suggested. "It'll be easier to explain."

Naruto opened his mouth to reply, but closed it not even a second later when Chiron—who Naruto thought was a cripple in a wheelchair—stood. The blanket that had been over his legs fell away, but the limbs themselves didn't even move. His waist looked like it was getting longer, like someone had grabbed one end of Chiron while another grabbed the other and began pulling.

It was only a second later that Naruto realised Chiron's waist wasn't getting longer, it was that Chiron was revealing what was behind those legs on the wheelchair. White fur covered his bottom half, accompanied by four, long and knobby-kneed legs with hooves at the bottom of them—like a horse.

Naruto would bet that his expression was gob smacked: his jaw had long since dropped, his eyes were wide, and his mind had gone blank.

The _centaur_ sighed in relief. "Ah, It's good to be out of that after so long." He said before giving Naruto his attention again. "Come, Naruto Uzumaki. Let's walk and talk. Take your belongings with you, as well."

Naruto sat there for a few more moments, trying to absorb what had just happened in front of him. Sure, he could deal with monsters and even a goddess randomly popping up from time to time, but watching someone who seemed to be a cripple suddenly become a centaur was a whole new experience.

He shook himself out of it, stood up, shoved his iPhone in his pocket, hesitated before doing the same with the horn, and jogged after Chiron to catch up.

The more they walked, the more Naruto noticed the other kids and satyrs around his age—some older, some younger. They all wore _CAMP HALF-BLOOD_ T-shirts like Annabeth's and he would admit he was kind of jealous that they got to wear such a cool orange colour. He looked down at his own navy blue shirt and grimaced. Blegh!

"I'm assuming you don't know much about Greek mythology, do you?"

Naruto blinked a few times and brought his attention back to Chiron. "Uh... maybe?" He racked his brain, searching for something. "Does it have to do with things that involve monsters and gods? 'Cause they're really the only thing I know right now. And cereal."

"Cereal." Chiron hummed. "Well, yes, you'd be right about the monsters and gods being in mythology." The centaur tilted his head slightly and looked at him through the corner of his eyes. "That's not the extent of it of course, but we'll stay simple, shall we?"

"Yeah. Simple sounds good."

They passed a volleyball court. Several of the campers glanced and pointed to him, muttering among their friends.

Chiron paid them no mind. "To put it bluntly, demigods are the offspring of a god and a mortal. Many demigods gain abilities relative to their godly parent. For instance, a demigod child of Hephaestus would be naturally skilled in a forge, while a child of Ares' skills would shine in war. Do you get where I'm going?"

Hephaestus and Ares' names had reminded him of something, like he'd heard and learnt about them before, just like Artemis and Hades. "Yeah." He bit the inside of his cheek and glanced down at his hands—the ones that had gone through hand signs the night before. "Do... do any of the gods happen to have anything to do with trees?"

"Just for trees? No. But there are several gods that would have trees fall under their jurisdiction." Chiron gave Naruto another glance, but there was something different in his eyes. It was like he'd just confirmed something to himself. "Pan, God of the Wild, would be a good example but I highly doubt that he's had any demigod offspring, especially not recently." Naruto looked at him questionably, but Chiron continued. "Then there's Demeter, too, an Olympian and Goddess of Agriculture."

Naruto drew in a sharp intake of breath at the name. It was so much more familiar than the others that it was causing him to get a headache. He shook his head and furrowed his brows, frowning. "Agriculture? Isn't that just plants and wheat and stuff?" Even as the words fled his mouth, he knew that wasn't the case, he just _knew._

He could have sworn he heard one of the trees in the distance giving him a myriad of names that he probably wouldn't appreciate.

Chiron chuckled. "You'd have been right if this was just over sixty years ago. But, now days, trees can fall under that same category ever since tree farming became something that people genuinely do for agricultural purposes. And of course Demeter, as the Goddess of Agriculture, got accustomed to it."

"Oh." Finding out who his parents were hadn't really been a primary objective of his, but it was definitely up there. Several gods that had something to do with trees didn't exactly help him narrow down who it was, though.

"Of course there's more gods that are affiliated with trees, as well."

Naruto wanted to say, _Thanks Chiron, I really needed that_, but held his tongue. No need to be an ass to the centaur that had given him clean clothes and was giving him free information. There was also the fact that Chiron's hooves looked like they could make his head go splat. "Right."

The next place they walked by was the strawberry fields. Campers were bent over, picking them up from bushels and placing them in baskets while a satyr—one bigger than Grover—played a pipe.

"The strawberry fields are a way for us to bring in income." Chiron informed him. "We sell them to restaurants in New York and Mount Olympus—the home of the gods. They're easy to grow, too."

"Really?" Naruto asked. "Easy to grow, huh? So the soil here is great? Or do you have some sort of super-powered compost?"

"Yes, super-powered compost." Chiron's eyes twinkled with mirth. "Though I'd suggest you refrain yourself from saying that to Mr. D when you meet him."

Their next destination in their tour—which Naruto only just noticed he was getting—was the woods, somewhere Naruto felt most comfortable. The forest was huge, and the trees were thick and with a height that dwarfed the ones that were in the forest were he had met Artemis.

Naruto whistled. "Man, I've heard about getting wood before, but this is..." He trailed off when he saw Chiron giving him a bland look. "What?"

The centaur just shook his head. "This is were we usually play Capture the Flag games, Naruto—monsters usually inhabit it too, so if you ever plan on going in make sure to be armed and have someone else with you." Naruto felt like arguing that he'd spent who knows how long on his own fighting off monsters alone, but instead just nodded. "Your tool doesn't happen to be able to be able to turn into a shield, does it?"

"Uh..." Naruto brought out his iPhone and looked at it. The screen was black, and the casing was bronze that glowed in the dark—just like when it was a weapon. "I have no damn clue."

"Language." Chiron chided idly. "Maybe you should give it a shot later, we have more to see."

The next part of the tour wasn't as exciting—Naruto didn't get to go near many trees, and there wasn't a cool new object that he could transform his iPhone into. Though he did have to stifle a laugh when he saw Chiron looking at the stables with some distaste.

Eventually though they arrived at the cabins. There was twelve of them in total, arranged in a U with two of them at the base; in the very middle was a stone-lined fire pit. They all had brass numbers above their doors—odd numbers on the left side, evens on the right. Most of them had kids of all ages around them, and looked very different and intricate (Naruto didn't even know what the word meant, it just seemed to fit), but one in particular caught his eye.

It was the first cabin on the right, with a brass number _4_ above the door. Fresh, green grass lined the roof, the blades swaying in the light wind. The light brown walls had tomato vines growing on them, and the porch had wild flowers and roses growing on it. It wasn't as grand as the cabins that had the numbers _1_ and _2_ over them, but Naruto liked the look of it anyway; even if there was no orange or trees.

Naruto liked trees.

Chiron began a brief explanation like he had with the other areas. "The twelve cabins are for the twelve Olympian gods' demigod children." He said. "Once you've been claimed by your parent, you'll be staying in the cabin designated to whomever it may be."

"Claimed?" Naruto echoed the word with a frown. "What, so, we're just like lost property, ready to be taken from the Lost 'n' Found basket?"

Chiron let out a deep breath through his nose and crossed his human arms. "Unfortunately, to some gods, their children may be seen that way." Chiron glanced at Naruto, his expression softening slightly. "That's not always the worst case scenario though—a lot of demigods don't even get claimed; simply forgotten by their parents."

Naruto didn't know any single word that could describe the emotions he felt at the centaur's words. Anger? Yes. Resentment? A little, but it was hard to resent people you hadn't even seen before. Disgust? Kind of; it wasn't the same disgust he felt when he'd been forced to sleep in a dumpster beside that old, kind homeless man who had offered it to him when he needed it though.

"What happens to them?" Naruto found himself biting out. Chiron put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed firmly yet calmly, and Naruto felt himself calming down. He didn't take a deep breath, but he did relax his shoulders and managed to get out in a much more sedate voice: "You said that once I was claimed I'd be sent to the cabin that belongs to my parent, so what happens to the ones who don't get claimed?"

Chiron smiled plainly. "They stay in the Hermes cabin." The name brought something up in the back of Naruto's mind, but he pushed it away for later and instead watched as the centaur gestured to cabin 11—a worn down and old looking cabin with its dull brown paint chipping off. "Hermes doesn't mind unclaimed demigods staying in his cabin, but that also means that the cabin itself is always crowded; both with Hermes' own children and the offspring of other gods."

Naruto wanted to say something, like how Hermes sounded like an awesome guy for offering up his cabin, but he couldn't find his voice. Luckily, he didn't have to as Chiron was the one to break the small silence that had come over them.

"Time to come full circle."

They walked passed the volleyball court again, and they were back at what Chiron called The Big House, only this time there was a man sitting on one of the deck chairs that were on the porch.

He kind of reminded Naruto of the the drunk he'd had the misfortune to meet once—small, yet porky, with curly hair that was so black it was almost purple. He wore a leopard-spot shirt and purple running shoes, though it didn't really look like the man had ever bothered to run anywhere. He was flipping a card in between his fingers, and when he noticed their presence, he turned his head towards them lazily, his bloodshot eyes boring into the centaur's. "Chiron."

Naruto frowned when he noticed that the lookalike-drunk hadn't even acknowledged him being there.

Chiron turned his head to glance at him. "Naruto Uzumaki, this is Mr. D, he's the director of Camp Half-Blood."

With the way Mr. D was looking at him like he couldn't care less, Naruto had a hard time not calling him out on the super-compost. He pursed his lips. "So glad to meet you, Mr. D."

He hoped it came out as sarcastic as it sounded in his head.

"Yeah, whatever." Mr. D waved a lazy hand in his direction before raising an eyebrow, his eyes flickering above Naruto's head. "Would you look at that." He drawled.

Naruto tilted his head up to see what Mr. D was looking at and he caught a brief glimpse of it—a small, glowing, and flickering image of a wheat sheaf. He made a dumb noise in the back of his throat: "Buh?"

"You have been claimed." Chiron turned his body to face him and bowed his head. "Hail, Naruto Uzumaki, Son of Demeter, Goddess of Agriculture and the Harvest, Mistress of the Seasons."

Naruto blinked. "Ah..."

* * *

An hour later, Naruto still didn't know how to feel on what had happened. He was the child of a goddess, and not just any goddess, an Olympian—one of the twelve major gods. Okay, yeah, around the camp having an Olympian goddess for a mother was pretty much commonplace, but it still made his head spin with questions like, _Where was she?_ Or, _What's she like? Does she like Oreos and cereal?_

He stopped the pacing he'd been mindlessly doing, letting his arms drop to his side before looking up at the big pine tree he was near. Naruto would be honest, he liked it—it was thick, sturdy and strong, and the pine needles were a brilliant, healthy looking green. Best of all though, he could feel something coming from it; he couldn't really place what it was, but he definitely liked it.

After the completely awkward moment of Chiron bowing his head to him, the centaur had advised that he should meet the other campers and get accustomed, but Naruto had came up here instead.

Don't get him wrong, Naruto did want to meet others that were like him, but what was he supposed to say? _Hey, guys! I'm Naruto Uzumaki, I found out my mother is Demeter, and my memory sucks!_

No.

Naruto sighed, leaned his back against the pine tree and closed his eyes. He knew what he had to do—get his memories back. But, how the hell was he supposed to do something like that? Sure, okay, Artemis had told him he might get his memories back at Camp Half-Blood and he wasn't going to shoot down her claim when that was all he had to make him keep going right now, but he wanted to do something—_anything_—to reach that point.

_Just be patient._

His eyes snapped open and he flinched away in surprise. It was that same voice again, the one that had been speaking to him over the weeks he'd been on his own, and it was one other thing he really didn't know how to feel about. Over the nights, it had been... comforting to have the voice there; not like a hug (had he even been hugged before?), but more like a hand on his shoulder, letting him know that it wasn't for nothing. But there was too many questions about the voice, ones he didn't have answers for.

Like every other time the voice had told him something though, he decided to listen to it. He pushed off from the pine tree and looked up at the early-afternoon sun. "Time to meet and greet, I guess."

Just like it had been an hour before, the area around the twelve cabins was bustling with teens, but this time there was a girl—probably eight or nine years old—kneeling down by the fire pit and poking at the hot coals with a stick.

No one was even glancing in her direction, just going about their own business, acting as if they couldn't even see her. Naruto didn't like it.

Before he'd even realised what he was doing, he had begun walking towards the fire pit. She must have heard his footsteps, because she turned her head, flickering orange and red irises—like a flame was burning behind her eyes—peering up at him.

"Hey."

Her lips curved upwards, a strange gleam in her eyes. "Hello, Naruto."

Naruto sat down cross-legged beside her, his elbow resting on his knee with his chin in his palm. The fact that she knew his name creeped him out a bit, but no more than when Artemis had said it without him even mentioning it to her in their brief encounter. "How do you know my name?"

"Ah." She mumbled, her smile becoming strained. "I've known your name since the day of your birth, Naruto."

He gave her a blank look. "What?" Despite her forced smile, her eyes twinkled with mirth. "How? I mean, you're younger than me."

"Appearances can be deceiving, Naruto—especially among us immortals."

It took Naruto a little bit, but then it finally clicked. "W-wait, don't tell me you'r-"

"Hestia." She said, holding out her small hand to him, her smile becoming more at ease yet still forced. "Goddess of the Hearth, Home, and Family."

Naruto was thankful that she'd introduced herself that way, because unlike with the other gods, nothing had come to his mind when she'd stated her name. He gripped her smaller hand with his own, putting his thoughts of how weird sharing a handshake with a girl was away. A warm feeling coursed through him, like he was sitting in front of a fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate in his hand.

He blinked himself out of it. "Wait, hold on." He frowned at her, their hands going back to their original positions. "You said that you've known my name since I was born, does that mean you know _who_ I am?"

Hestia closed her eyes and sighed, twirling the stick—which looked more like a short pole now that he was up close—between her thumb and index finger. "That's something you need to find out on your own." She said, practically repeating what Chiron had told him earlier. Naruto opened his mouth to protest, but Hestia stood up, her brown dress falling to just below her knees, and planted her bare feet on the hot coals. "I'll be leaving now, Naruto."

His breath caught in his throat. "W-wai-"

Hestia shook her head a little somberly. "I'll give you a warning before I leave, Naruto; don't trust anyone who claims to personally know you, even the gods." And just like that she was gone, disappearing in a small plume of fire, metaphorically burning a chance to regain his memories into ashes.

_'Great.'_ He thought with a sigh. _'Even more cryptic information.'_

"Hey! New guy!" At the sound of the bark, Naruto turned his head to his right to see a group of three campers storming towards him, with all of them having the same rough and hard look about them. They were coming towards him from the direction of cabin 5—the one painted in red like the blood that ran through his veins, with barb wire on the roof, and what looked like a boar's head on the doorway.

The three of them were large, not as in overweight, but with more muscle on their bodies than what should be considered normal. The one in the front—a girl—scowled fiercely at him, managing to look both pleased and annoyed that he was there in one expression. She had long, stringy light brown hair, brown eyes, wore the usual _CAMP HALF-BLOOD_ shirt, and a pair of camo pants.

Naruto stood up from his seated position. "Yeah? And who are you?"

"Clarisse." She bit out, sneering. "Daughter of Ares. And I want proof of what you did last night."

"Huh?" Naruto gave her a weird look. "What I did last night?"

"The Minotaur." She glared at him so hard he thought he'd start burning to death right then and there. "You killed it—or helped kill it—and I don't believe a newbie like you would have been able to do it."

Naruto got the feeling that Clarisse wasn't talking about wanting to see the horn, but he pulled it out of his pocket and showed it to her anyway. "Here's your proof, then."

She slapped at his hand, knocking the horn into the grass below. Clarisse moved into his personal space, glaring straight into his eyes. "I don't mean that proof." She said. "I want a fight."

By this time, the other kids around the cabins had noticed the commotion and had formed a semi-circle around them, with the two who had been behind Clarisse joining it. There was probably a hundred in total, all looking eager at the prospect of a fight.

_'Right.'_ Naruto thought, eyeing the crowd. _'A fight. I can fight.'_ He focused his attention back on Clarisse, a growing cocky smirk coming onto his face. "Then let's fight, _Skila__._"

Naruto didn't really know what he'd said, but he guessed it was an insult if the red face Clarisse had gotten and the oh's coming from the gathered campers was anything to go by.

Someone in the crowd threw a spear towards them, the bronze head pointing towards the sky, and Clarisse plucked it out of the air, snarling and swinging at him before he'd even realised the fight had started.

He ducked under her swipe, and then rolled away a second later just in time to avoid getting impaled. He stood back up and dug into his pocket, pulling out his iPhone. The campers looked at the object with interest and raised eyebrows, some even going as far as snickering.

That is until he pressed the Home button with his thumb, extending it into a 7 ft. long spear with a dull brown shaft, and a shiny, bronze head. _'Awesome.'_ He thought sarcastically. _'Now I look like a copycat.'_ He couldn't help it though, a spear was the first thing that had come to his mind—probably because he'd almost just been pierced by one moments before. The campers started whispering among themselves, but Naruto tried to ignore it. "Well? Is that all you got?"

Clarisse smirked and tightened her grip on her own spear. "Not at all."

She made a jab at his chest and Naruto deflected it, sliding the shaft of his spear along hers. The bronze head almost embedded itself into her chest, but she jerked her spear's butt end and forced his weapon upwards.

She spun the spear around and slammed the shaft into his midsection, forcing all the wind out of him and sending him sprawling back, his weapon flying out of his hands and embedding itself into the ground a few meters away from him.

Clarisse smirked. "Is that all you got?"

Naruto growled and tried to ignore the sharp pain in his midsection—that blow had bloody hurt. He spared a quick glance at his spear and wondered if he'd be able to make a dash to it, but with the skill Clarisse had shown in their short confrontation so far, he doubted it.

His mind inadvertently flashed back to the previous night, or more specifically, when he'd used his apparent control over wood to trap Man-Bull. How had he done it? He only really remembered doing some random gestures with his hands, and then suddenly-BAM! A wooden prison, free of charge.

Naruto's thoughts were cut off when he was forced to move out of the way as Clarisse's spear whizzed by his torso, tearing into the fabric on his shirt as it went—oh well, he didn't like the colour of it anyway, he much preferred orange. Any thoughts of regaining his spear had been banished from his mind, as now instead of just distance between him and it, it was distance with Clarisse in the middle.

Just amazing.

He brought up his hands and balled them into fists, ignoring the chuckles and shaking heads of the surrounding campers. Sure, he could have done something else—call it quits like the more logical side of him was saying—but that wasn't an option to him; he was the new kid, and didn't want to build a reputation of him being a baby because he lost his weapon.

Clarisse lunged at him again, the bronze spear head glinting in the sunlight as it went to impale him like he was one of Vlad's enemies.

Naruto really wanted to do something cool; like, maybe, grab onto Clarisse's spear and snap it in half, or do a sweet roll under it to get in her personal space. But, instead, he did what was probably the lamest move he could take—he backpedaled until he was out of her range.

The Daughter of Ares scowled, slamming the butt end of her spear into the ground. "What are you?!" She snarled. "Stop being a coward and fight!"

While the other campers snickered, Naruto felt something build up inside of him. He gritted his teeth and leaped forward, ducking and rolling when he noticed Clarisse's arm twitch and swing her spear at him. He came back onto his feet in a crouch, right in front of Ares' daughter, and slammed his shoulder into her stomach, tackling her and bringing them both to the ground.

"I'm not a coward." Naruto blinked and found himself on top of Clarisse, his knees on either side of her, his left hand hovering just above her throat and his right fist held in the air threateningly. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki, Son of Demeter." He smirked, putting what he'd apparently done in the back of his mind for now. "And I just kicked your ass."

Clarisse stared up at him with wide, stunned and angry eyes. A few whistles and whoops came from the crowd of campers, and that's when she pushed him off. She stood up and glared at him, paying no attention to the dirt or scrapes she'd gotten from their tumble. "My team." She said fiercely. "Friday night's Capture the Flag, you're on my team."

Clarisse stomped away, snapping at anyone who came within range, and Naruto just sat on the ground, not really knowing what to think.

"Hey." He felt a few taps on his shoulder, and he looked up to see a much older guy, probably around nineteen or so. He was pretty tall, with close-cropped sandy hair, blue eyes, and a crooked grin. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, and had a necklace with five different beads on it. Beneath his right eye, a thick white scar ran down to his jaw. "Nice show you put on."

"Uh, thanks."

The guy held his hand out, and Naruto took his before getting hoisted back onto his feet. "Luke Castellan." He introduced. "Son of Hermes."

Naruto thought that it was pretty weird to say who your parent was when introducing yourself—he'd only said it before because it sounded pretty cool in his head. "Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm, uh-"

"Yeah." Luke's eyes crinkled. "One of Demeter's children; pretty impressive that you beat an Ares kid in a straight up fight like that."

Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Ah, I just kinda... moved."

Luke shrugged with a smirk, a gleam in his eyes. "It still worked, and you won. So what does it matter?" Luke walked past him and offered a short wave over his shoulder. "I'll see you around."

"Yeah, sure." Naruto looked around, only just realising that the previous crowd had disbanded, all of them going back to whatever they had been doing beforehand. He walked over to his spear and plucked it out of the ground, transforming it back into an iPhone and shoving into it his pockets, before picking up the Minotaur's horn which was conveniently right next to it.

He looked up and bit the inside of his cheek, for in front of him was the cabin for Demeter—the same place the siblings he'd yet to meet were. It was weird, thinking that he had brothers and sisters that he didn't even know the names of, let alone what they looked like. Questions arose in his mind, like, _Have I met any of them before?_ And, _What are they going to think of a lousy brother that doesn't even know how old he is?_

Despite how nervous he felt, he walked onto the porch and gave the door with the brass number 4 above it a few knocks, idly noting that the scent of the flowers was oddly calming. Strange, seeing as he didn't have any special kind of connection to flowers, just trees.

That's when the door opened. In the doorway stood a girl, only half of a head shorter than him, with straight black hair, and wide brown eyes that looked at him curiously. Like all the other campers, she wore an orange T-shirt with _CAMP HALF-BLOOD_ imprinted on it, as well as a knee-length skirt and a pair of white socks. "Yes?"

"I'm... uh..." He coughed, internally scolding himself for making himself look like a klutz that couldn't even form a sentence. He'd felt like he'd had to say his name a million times already, but oh well. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki, your new brother."

Damn. That had came out way more awkward than he'd intended.

The girl's eyebrows rose in surprise before she shrugged it off and moved aside, swinging the door open wider. "Come on in, then."

Naruto couldn't help but think: _'Wow, If I'd been told I had a new sibling, I would have flipped out.'_

He walked inside. Naruto decided to add another thing to his list of things he didn't really know how to feel about; the inside of the cabin. The walls were the same light shade of brown as the outside, single beds with bedside tables lined them, leaving a lane wide enough to allow a few people to walk through at one time. At the opposite end of the cabin was a line of freshly grown wheat, which someone was tending to.

On his left and right in the corners, were healthy looking, sized-down eucalyptus trees that reached the roof—much more his style.

There was only three kids in the room, bar him and the girl beside him, so it wasn't much of a surprise that when the girl put two fingers in her mouth and whistled, everyone turned their attention to them almost straight away. "Everyone, this is Naruto." She nudged him lightly with her elbow. "The newest addition to our cabin."

A few seconds passed in silence, before he was on the receiving end of a a couple small waves, and greetings of 'hi'. After that, they simply went back to what they had been doing, even the boy who looked to be the youngest that was by the wheat.

He looked at the girl beside him who had a small frown on her face. "I didn't do anything wrong, did I?"

She turned her head to look at him before shaking it. "No, you didn't." She bit her lip. "Sorry, it's just that they only just got here recently, and well... it's hard for some to adjust." She sighed before forcing on a smile. "I'm Katie, by the way. Katie Gardner."

Naruto smiled back. "Glad to meet you, Katie."

* * *

**Chapter 2 done!**

**Now, before anyone else gets to it: Yes, these chapters are introductory chapters. I know, I know, you've read it all before, but they need to be there before I really start writing about the nitty gritty plot stuff.**

**Okay, so I had been tossing up between whether or not Naruto should spend a night in the Hermes cabin, but I decided for _nay_, as I didn't see a point in it, especially considering the way I handled Naruto's arrival, and the hints as to how he'd been living beforehand. Also, in the books, only two of Demeter's children are actually introduced, so any others that _I_ introduce will be OC's; not to worry though, they'll only play a minor roll, with the biggest role any OC's will play is if/when I decide to kill them off.**

**Next topic: Tree farming. I'm paranoid that someone's going to bring this up, so I'll state it here and now. Tree farming _is_ an actual thing that people do in agriculture, ever since the 1940's (1941, I think). And yeah, I got that from Wikipedia, I'm not that smart to know that on my own, give me a break.**

**_Skila _means bitch in Greek, and not the female dog kind. I got it from a website, not Google translator, but if I'm wrong, then feel free to correct me.  
**

**Next one! What is Hestia's hinted at past with Naruto? Ah, I know the answer to that one, but none of you do, and that's awesome.**

**Okay, second last subject for this story: my current thoughts on the pairing. Right at this very moment, I'm leaning more towards either Calypso or Annabeth; Annabeth because 1) I haven't seen it done before, and 2) because of the interactions Naruto and Percy are going to be having. Calypso for kinda obvious reasons, she's pretty awesome, and it can only manage to piss Atlas off.**

**Last one. Do you know what I've always wanted to see in a _Naruto/PJO_ crossover? The two protagonists clashing; so that's absolutely how I'm going to write their interactions with each other. I like both characters equally, yes, but I don't want to see them on such friendly terms anymore.**

**This is the last part of this extremely long and tedious AN. Guess what? It's my Birthday today (31st), so I can no longer call myself a 16 year old, socially awkward, video game loving recluse. I have to call myself a 17 year old, socially awkward, video game loving, and currently drunk (It's New Years Eve, don't hold it against me) recluse instead.**

_**Happy New Year!**_


	3. He plays CTF

Son of Demeter Chapter 3

Disclaimers suck grapey watermelons.

* * *

_Naruto blinked. The first thing that ran through his mind was: What?_

_He was outside his cabin on the porch apparently, but how? He'd only just gotten into his single bed and thrown the blanket over himself not even five minutes ago. He shook it off and took a look around. There was a whole lot of demigods hanging around their cabins, talking with their siblings or others from different cabins—just like normal. But... there was something different about them; Naruto couldn't exactly place it, but they felt... off._

_He looked down at himself. He was wearing what he'd began to wear on pretty much a daily basis since he arrived at the camp a few days ago—the awesome, orange camp T-shirt, jeans, and converses. He dug into his pockets for his iPhone, but there was nothing there, which was weird considering he made sure not to go anywhere without it, ever._

_Before he could even start thinking about going turning around to back into his cabin and start looking for it, an immense amount of heat built up behind him, followed by a BOOSH that made his teeth rattle. The campers immediately turned their attention towards him—wait, no, it was like they were looking through him, at something that was behind him._

_A pit of dread started to build up in his stomach, and he slowly turned around. What he was met with was something he'd never want to see. There, in the middle of the destroyed and almost non-existent cabin for Demeter, stood him. Well, it wasn't really him, but it looked like him, so much so that the copy could be considered his twin. There was one glaring difference though, and that was the cold, red and slitted eyes his copy had, which looked like they belonged on a monster rather than someone that looked exactly like him._

_The copy had a body flung over his shoulder—a camper, by the looks of it. Like the demigods outside of the destroyed cabin, the copy seemed to look through him, a growing smirk on his whiskered face. The copy opened his mouth and began to speak, but Naruto couldn't hear him, and he certainly couldn't lip read. By the time the copy was finished with its speech, he shrugged off the camper's body, letting it fall to the flaming floor._

_The camper landed flat on her back, and Naruto's eyes flew open wide at who it was. It was Katie, his sister, and another child of Demeter. Her face was as white as paper, and her brown eyes were dull and lifeless._

_Naruto wanted to run over to her, but he didn't get the chance to as his copy blasted straight through him so fast that he only managed to catch a brief glimpse. Soon after, sounds of clashing metal reached his ears, and he whipped around to see his copy fighting._

_He was exactly like a monster—his gleaming, bronze blade sliced and stabbed, cutting any demigod that attempted to even get close to him down. Anyone who got close to his copy didn't even get a chance to scream before they were silenced forever._

_Naruto swallowed. What in Tartarus' name was he doing just standing there? He sprinted at his copy who had just booted what looked like one of Hermes' kids away, and when he was close enough, he tensed his legs and leaped, aiming to bring his copy to the ground._

_While Naruto was in mid-air, his copy spun around, xiphos already swinging straight for his neck. Even if Naruto had wanted to back down, he wouldn't have been able to do anything to stop the bronze blade._

_It turned out that there hadn't been any need for him to do anything anyway, as the sword went straight through him, and at the same time Naruto flew into his copy's body and out the other side. Naruto heard a gurgle as he slammed into the ground, followed by metal thumping onto the ground._

_Naruto turned his head around to see Clarisse, Ares' daughter, with a long gash running from her right shoulder down to her left hip, barely standing in front of his copy. His copy snarled something at her, but she just spat her blood in his face before collapsing onto her back, a puddle of blood forming around her and staining the grass._

_Out of the corner of his eyes, Naruto noticed the mass of campers—now all suited up in amour, weapons and shields at the ready—running towards his copy. The fake flicked Clarisse's blood off his blade and smirked, glancing at Naruto out of the corner of his eyes and winking, a cold glint in his eyes, before-_

"Gyah!" Naruto shot up in his bed, eyes wide and alert, jaw rattling in shock, with his entire body breaking out into a cold sweat. His eyes darted around the cabin—the completely fine, and definitely not destroyed cabin. There was no fire, the walls were still the same light brown, and there wasn't a copy of him killing his sister.

"Hey, you alright?" His head snapped in the direction the tired voice had come from. Katie was sitting on the edge of her bed which was right beside his, legs dangling off the side, and covering her mouth to stifle a yawn. She wore what Naruto had earlier called just a bed sheet as night clothes, and her eyes were half-lidded.

"Uh, yeah. Fine. Perfect. Dandy, even." He said quickly.

"No need for the pun." She crinkled her nose like she was annoyed. "And there was no need to lie, either. Now tell me what's wrong."

"Uh..." He shuffled on his bed awkwardly. If there was anything that he'd learnt about Katie in his few short days at the camp, it was that she was stubborn. For example, when his youngest sibling—Ryan—had sprained his ankle, Katie was there and forced him to rest even when he had been persistent on participating in the training. "It was nothing, really. Just a dream."

"Just a dream?" Katie frowned. "Demigods don't usually have _just_ dreams, Naruto." He opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but she cut him off, already way ahead of him. "What I mean is that our dreams usually mean something. Maybe it's a message from the gods, or even a flashback into the distant past. It could be a possible future, too. Either way, they're important."

Naruto coughed into his hand. "Thanks, Katie." He forced on a smile. His dream definitely hadn't been any sort of flashback. He doubted it was a message from the gods, unless there was a god that wanted to make his life a living hell by plaguing his dreams. So that left a possible future, and he _really_ didn't want anything like that to happen. He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. "I'll see you in the morning."

"You want to talk about it?"

Naruto allowed his body to collide with his soft and comfortable bed. "... No."

* * *

"Naruto!"

He caught his iPhone in his right hand when it came back down before sitting up and looking to where the voice came from. That blonde girl that he'd met when he had awoken his first day at camp was jogging up to him, what was her name again? Ah, right, Annabeth. She had pretty much the same get-up as the last time he'd seen her—awesome orange T-shirt that he now had on included—only there was a baseball cap sticking out of her back pocket. "Yeah?"

She came to a stop at the few steps that led to his cabin's porch, where he was seated. "Percy's awake."

Naruto arched an eyebrow at her. "Who?"

Her expression went straight and blank, while her lips formed a thin line—the same expression Katie had when he'd asked her if he could get Oreos with his cereal, and it made him get the feeling that she thought he'd asked a stupid question. "Percy, you know, the one you got here with."

"Oh." Naruto had completely forgotten about the guy. He'd had too much on his mind, from settling in at camp and getting used to the schedule, to trying—and failing, bar Katie—at getting closer to his siblings, and then he'd had that dream the night before, too. "_That_ Percy."

"How many other Percy's do you know?"

"None." Annabeth rolled her eyes, but before she could get a word in, Naruto continued. "Why are you telling me he's awake anyway?"

She crossed her arms and leaned on the light-brown pillar. "Well, the two of you got here together, and I just thought you'd at least want to know."

"Ah, yeah, thanks." He hadn't really wanted to know, if anything he wanted to avoid Percy as much as possible; he was there when his mother had died/dissolved/disappeared (whatever it was), and he still felt a stab of guilt whenever he thought about it. She studied him like she was trying to figure him out. Naruto didn't know why, he wasn't very interesting. "So, uh, parent? Who's your parent, I mean."

Yeah. He really needed to work on his people skills.

She blinked at him, but didn't look as weirded out by the question as he'd thought. "Athena." She said, and Naruto's eye twitched as a brief description of who the goddess was surfaced in his mind, which was kind of unnecessary as Annabeth basically summed it up in her next set of words. "Goddess of Wisdom and Battle." Now it was the time for her to give him a weird look. "Why?"

"Just curious." Kind of, he had been a little curious, but it was mostly just to change the subject. "So, that makes us cousins or something, right?"

"Once removed." She agreed. "Though it's not like it really matters all that much. The gods don't have any DNA, so our relation and everyone else's at the camp is more of a formality."

Gods didn't have DNA, huh? That was a new one. Over the few days, Katie had been filling in some information about the camp and the gods here and there as he, well, didn't really know anything—something that only his siblings and presumably Chiron knew—but that hadn't been one of them. He couldn't help but feel a little relieved though, those girls in the Aphrodite and Apollo cabins were pretty good looking after all.

"Naruto." Annabeth snapped her fingers in front of his face, an expression of annoyance set on her own.

"Hm?"

"You weren't replying, and your face is red."

"I-It isn't." Naruto shook his head and coughed, forcing his head out of the gutter. He focused back on Annabeth. "What were you saying?"

"I said good luck Friday night." She smirked, a prideful gleam in her eyes. "You and your team are going to need it."

* * *

The next couple of days went by pretty quickly, during which Naruto purposefully avoided Percy, though he was fortunate to catch when Percy had—apparently—caused the pipes in the bathrooms to explode and drenched both Clarisse and Annabeth.

Katie had smirked when he'd told her and muttered something about Clarisse finally getting what she deserved.

Naruto had rolled his eyes at her. "Clarisse isn't that bad." He remembered saying. "I mean, I don't really know her, but she seems alright. Minus her being overly violent."

Before too long, Friday had come around. Naruto had gone through his usual routine—archery, hand-to-hand combat, Ancient Greek classes (which Annabeth taught and, unfortunately, Percy was in, too), and then there was lessons on how to combat different types of monsters.

Currently, Naruto was sitting at Demeter's table in the mess hall pavilion. A dryad came by and scooped up the empty plates from the table, giving him a shy look accompanied by a green blush as she went by.

Katie nudged him with a teasing smirk. "Someone's got a crush on you~"

Naruto huffed and looked away, his face warming up in embarrasment. "No way." He glanced around, ignoring his sister rolling her eyes.

The mess hall itself was huge, fitting twelve, large stone tables—one for each Olympian god. He couldn't see Clarisse behind the Ares table—where her siblings where talking among themselves—but he supposed that she was preparing for the Capture the Flag game that was soon. As expected, the Hermes table was the most crowded, and it was also the one that Percy was at.

Naruto couldn't help but feel even more guilty. Not only had he been there and done nothing to stop what had happened to Percy's mother, but he'd also been claimed by his parent not even a day after he'd been at the camp.

When the conch horn sounded out, everyone stood from their seats. From one end of the pavilion, Annabeth and two of who he assumed were her siblings (they looked similar) ran through carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree, and the Hermes, Athena and Apollo cabins cheered when they saw it. It was only three cabins, but they managed to put out enough noise to cause the ground to vibrate.

When the three cabins' cheers and shouts began to dwindle, the other cabins—his own included—began their own cheers. At the opposite of the pavilion that Annabeth entered, Clarisse and the two he'd seen with here when he'd first arrived ran in with another banner, only it was red with a bloody spear and a boar's head.

Naruto leaned forwards and planted his hands on the stone table. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed Katie biting her lip and fidgeting slightly. Her brown eyes flashed with concern every time they landed on someone else from their cabin, but she looked like she was trying to hide it.

Naruto couldn't really blame her for being worried though. They were all children of one of the major gods on Olympus, yes, but Demeter wasn't a goddess known for direct combat, and so they definitely weren't the most battle-ready demigods around, especially compared to kids who had a parent like Apollo or Ares.

"Hey." He nudged her lightly, grabbing her attention. "Don't worry so much, you'll start to get grey hair."

She irritably stomped on his foot.

At the front, Chiron hammered his hoof.

"Heroes!" He announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"

The centaur spread his arms, and the table in front of Naruto—along with every other table, he noticed—was filled to the the brim with celestial bronze armour and weapons.

Naruto picked up a helmet with a red horsehair plume on the top. He looked around, from the demigods slamming equipment on, to the ones grabbing their weapon of choice, and then over to Percy who was holding a shield awkwardly.

He shook his head. It was time for Capture the Flag, not to drown in his own stupid guilt. He put the helmet atop his head, moving his blond locks that were forced in front of his eyes away. It wasn't actually that bad of a fit—it wasn't squishing his head into mush, and it wasn't so big that it rattled around every time he moved his head.

Beside him, Katie shouldered a shield, pocketed a knife, and grabbed a spear.

"Wow." Naruto arched an eyebrow, a small smirk on his face. "Who knew you would know what you wanted to grab."

She huffed through her nose, putting one of the helmets under her arms. "I've done this plenty of times before." She smiled blandly. "You tend to get used to it when you've been here for a couple of years." She gave him a once over. "Not grabbing a weapon? A sword might be a good thing for you to grab for close-quarters."

"I've got my own." His eyes scanned the table, looking for a shield that wouldn't be so big that it'd feel as awkward as Percy looked with the one he had.

Katie frowned in his peripherals. "I thought you just had a spear."

"Well, uh..." He picked up a circular shield with the Greek Omega symbol on the front of it. "It kinda transforms into anything I can picture in my head."

"Really?" She tilted her head to the side slightly. "What, so you could make it into a pile of drachmas as well?"

"Drachmas?"

"The currency we use." Her eyes twinkled. "Could you do it?"

"Nope." Naruto replied, giving her a weird look when she visibly deflated. "I mean, I don't know everything about it, but it's almost like there's restrictions on it."

"Like?"

Before Naruto could answer, Annabeth's voice shouted out over the noise of clattering metal and muttering teens. "Blue team, forward!"

Everyone with a helmet that had a blue plume on top of it cheered and shook their swords, following Athena's daughter down the path to the south part of the woods. Clarisse and the majority of the Ares cabin along with one of the bulky kids from Hephaestus and some of Aphrodite's children yelled taunts after them.

When their verbal assault had finished, Clarisse whistled loudly, the high-pitched sound reverberating throughout the pavilion. "Reds on me!"

Naruto didn't think they would be able to pull off the same amount of noise as the blue team, but they managed it, and it actually felt kind of good to shout and cheer before a battle.

He hefted the circular shield as Clarisse began leading the way into the north part of the woods and soon followed after his team.

The stars glittered in the night sky, the moon shone and provided them with a natural light, and the giant trees rustled in the cool breeze.

A gruff voice reached Naruto's ears. "Hey." When he got a look at the owner, he instantly thought that the guy belonged to the Ares cabin. He had a rough face that seemed to almost naturally have a sneer on it, broad shoulders, was a few inches taller than Naruto, and held his sword like he'd been holding it his entire life.

"Yeah?"

The corner of the guy's lips curved into a smirk. "You're going to be on defense, right at the flag." His eyes glinted with mirth, like he was silently laughing at an inside joke. He dug into his pocket with his free hand and took out a red tube before shoving it into Naruto's hands. "Here, take it. It's a flare."

"A what?"

The guy rolled his eyes. "A flare, just pop the cap and pull on the tab on this inside if anyone on the blue team gets too close to the flag."

"Uh, yeah, right."

At the front, Clarisse stopped and held up her hand. She turned around to face them, brown eyes flashing with excitement. "Alright, so this what we're going to do..."

Clarisse's plan was simple but effective, consisting of two waves.

The first wave was mostly the campers from the Ares cabin, two groups of three going on the borders of the forest, and one bigger attack straight up the middle—a distraction and a possible group to capture the blue team's flag. Katie was the only from his cabin in the first wave, going with one of the groups on the border.

The second wave was, apparently, a much weaker one, but with the purpose of buying enough time for the demigods in the first wave to recover if need be. There was a few of Ares' children in there, but it was mostly Naruto's siblings, two of Hephaestus' kids, and the rest being the campers from Aphrodite's camp who didn't seem overly happy about having to participate.

During the time that the first wave was going forwards, the remainder of the Hephaestus cabin would be setting up mechanical traps aiming to injure and slow down any blue's that could get close.

Naruto, however, was like Mark—the child of Ares who had given him the flare—had said, right next to the flag, well away from the battles that were no doubt going to begin soon. The flag itself was in a small clearing away from any trees, while he was off to the side.

He grunted, crossed his arms and let the back of his head smack against the tree he was leaning on with a thump. Something snapped above him and hit him in the head, and he grabbed it before throwing it away, taking note that it was a small branch.

He grumbled. "Not in the mood."

Why was he the one that had to be stuck defending the flag? Hadn't he been the one to beat Clarisse, and wasn't that why she'd wanted him on her team? He wanted to participate, damn it! You know, get in there, communicate with his team, and help in winning the game!

Sure, defense played a part—a big, important part—but he wanted to be on the offensive, there was more action and more stuff he could do that way.

He got off the tree, grunted, and started pacing.

A sigh brought his attention to the side, where the other one on his team who had been assigned to guard the flag was. Silena Beauregard, one of Aphrodite's many daughters, was... attractive, to say the least. Her near waist-length black hair contrasted with the moonlight, her blue eyes glittered, and her slim figure stood up straight.

He frowned at her. "What?"

Silena's lips formed a thin line. "We're supposed to be guarding the flag, Naruto, not pacing around and brooding."

"I'm not brooding."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you definitely are."

Naruto opened his mouth to retort—the light banter was at least kind of entertaining—but the sound of a battle cry followed by metal clanging against metal made him pause.

The trees swayed in synchronization, _Middle group._

Naruto felt his lips twitch upwards; trees were awesome, and his mood went up slightly at the fact that none of his siblings were in conflict yet.

Silena summed it up in a few words: "The fighting's started."

Despite Naruto wanting to just sprint into the middle of the forest and start fighting the blue team so that his own team could get the flag, he stayed put; he didn't want to be the guy that ruined the entire game because he was bored and couldn't sit still

And so he waited, making idle chat with Silena to pass the time. The girl was actually kind of interesting—more down to earth than her siblings, and didn't seem to mind participating in Capture the Flag. During that time, the trees had kept him informed, telling him when the two groups going on the border had been engaged. It had only been around ten minutes or so since the second wave had began to press the attack.

"You know, Silena, you're act-" Naruto began, but paused when the trees swayed again, making it seem the entire forest was alive. Well, technically, trees were alive—they even aged—but he wasn't going to get into that right now.

_Three on the way._

Silena furrowed her eyebrows. "What is it?"

Naruto stood up from his seated position and leaned around the tree, looking into the clearing their red flag was in. It was still there and no one was in the clearing, but he could see a few trees in one specific place directly opposite of his and Silena's resting place swaying and rustling—the location of the demigods on the blue team.

Had he ever mentioned how much he loved trees?

Naruto looked back at Aphrodite's daughter and jerked his head in the direction of the blues. He felt kind of stupid doing it, but he pushed it to the back of his mind, even if there had been no real reason for him to feel like an idiot when he could have just pointed with his finger instead.

Silena stood up and creeped over to him, leaning on her tiptoes and sticking her head over his shoulder so she didn't stick out like a sore thumb. Sure, it was dark and with the trees they were pretty much invisible, but she probably didn't want to risk it.

"See it?" He asked and Silena squinted. "The trees swaying on the other side, Silena."

"Oh." She said in a half-hearted attempt at sarcasm. "Sorry. I couldn't see any trees swaying what with all the other trees doing the same thing."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

He was jumpy. He wanted to just burst out of the tree line, run straight for the blues, and then kick their asses. He didn't though; they were on the defense and had the advantage right now. But as soon as the blues made a move, he'd be all up on them and in their personal space, hopefully swinging his sword and taking them all out on his own.

That'd be cool.

It was a silent standoff, during which Silena shuffled around behind him. Either she was nervous or just couldn't stand silence and doing nothing just as much as him. He'd prefer to think the latter, the daughter of Aphrodite was alright in his books.

It wasn't all that long before the group of blues had apparently decided it was time to move. Out of the tree line on their side, one single camper burst out, making a dead sprint for the flag.

Naruto waited a few seconds before glancing at Silena. "Stay here until it looks like I'm in trouble, okay?"

He didn't wait for her reply. Naruto ran straight for the camper sprinting at his team's flag, flicking his iPhone out and pressing the Home button. His weapon shifted and changed in his hands, changing into a xiphos.

The camper snapped his head in his direction, apparently hearing him, and Naruto found out who the camper was—Luke Castellan, one of Hermes' kids. Luke smirked at him, shifting the scar on his face, and picked up his pace.

The blue team's demigod got to the flag before him, but that's exactly what Naruto had wanted—get him while he was occupied with the flag. Luke snatched up the red flag and Naruto lunged, his celestial bronze blade gleaming in the moonlight.

Luke didn't even flinch, his smirk still in place as he batted the side of Naruto's blade away with the shaft of the flag. Naruto rolled with it, twisting his body and using the momentum of his sprint to plant the sole of his converses into Luke stomach, sending the much older demigod skidding back, but still with the flag.

Naruto saw Hermes' son's lips part into a grin through the slit in his helmet. "That's not enough, Naruto."

Naruto grinned back, a strange sense of excitement rising inside of him. "Who said I was done just yet?" He'd probably call it reckless and stupid later, but he didn't want to sit still anymore, so he sprinted at Luke.

The son of Hermes stabbed the bottom of the flag into the ground, apparently accepting his challenge.

When he was close enough, Naruto swung at Luke's shoulder, but the older demigod's blade was already there, smacking his weapon away with ease. Luke used Naruto's surprise to make a jab at his ribs, but Naruto reflexively brought the shield he'd grabbed up and the older blond's sword bounced off.

Naruto lashed out with his leg and stomped on Luke's foot with his heel as hard as he could, making him grunt, before slamming his shield into Luke's chest. Naruto felt pain and something warm on his right shoulder but he tried to ignore it.

Luke grunted and stumbled back. When he regained his bearings, Luke smirked. "That's better."

After the small praise, Naruto had expected Luke to attack back, kind of like a game of chess, but the son of Hermes' smile just grew wider as he took deliberate steps away from him.

In the distance, the trees swayed and rustled loudly, all but screaming at him_, Move!_

Without hesitation, Naruto leaped away from Luke, just in time as a hail of arrows slammed into where he had been. There wasn't any killing allowed in the Capture the Flag game, so the Hephaestus cabin had forged a whole bunch of arrows with spherical ends made of celestial bronze. Don't take it the wrong way though, sure they wouldn't dig into any flesh, but man would those things hurt; Beckendorf, one of Hephaestus' demigods, had said it was comparable to getting a fist-sized rock pelted at you.

Naruto stood back up. He looked to his left; he couldn't see anyone with his eyes, but the trees were being as awesome as always and were letting him know where they were.

Another round of arrows flew out of the trees at a breakneck pace. He raised his circular shield and they slammed into it, denting the shield and making him grind his teeth together at the pain that shot through his arm from the vibrations.

Naruto glared at the older teen who simply grabbed the flag and he ground out. "_Luke._"

Luke sent him a smirk. "Sorry Naruto, but this is a war game. You've got to use everything to your advantage."

There was a high-pitched whistle, and Naruto felt something slam into his ankle so hard that it felt it had been broken. He dropped his shield and cried out from the pain, flinching away and leaning on his good leg. He gnashed his teeth together, glaring at the spot that the other two blues were. "Damn it."

The son of Hermes started a light jog towards his teammates, only top stop in his tracks midway.

Naruto frowned, what was Luke doing? Why wasn't he still running?

From where the other blues were, there was a shout of surprise, followed by a few thunks like something was slamming into the trunk of a tree, until finally a camper with a bow and quiver was ejected out of the tree line, flat on his face.

Naruto looked at Luke who seemed just as surprised as he was. Luke turned his head around and their eyes met. There was a brief, tense silence before the older demigod shot off, crossing his arms in front of his face as he went out of the clearing into the dense forest.

Naruto chased after him as fast as he could with a slight limp. Once he'd made it into the forest, he caught a glimpse of Silena slamming the butt end of her dagger into the other blue team's archer, causing him to recoil back. The archer's punishment apparently wasn't over yet though, as the tree he'd stumbled near twisted it's branches, slamming into his head and making Naruto think that the trees had helped Aphrodite's daughter with the other camper in some way.

The canopies of the trees shifted around, letting the moonlight shine down on Luke as he ran, showing Naruto exactly where he was.

The son of Hermes himself didn't seem to be having a very good time. The branches of the trees kept getting in his way, even managing to trip him up once, but he just went into a roll and got back and kept sprinting.

For Naruto, however, the tree branches moved out of his way, letting him sprint freely and as fast as he could, which wasn't really fast at all with his busted-up ankle. As he ran, the trees spoke to him, _They're being pushed back._

Luke grunted, using his sword to cut down the branches that got in his way as much as he could. It worked for some of them, but they were in a forest with more trees than the eye could see, and then a bunch more. Slowly but surely, Naruto was catching up to him.

It had seemed like an age, but he finally managed to get close enough to Luke just a bunch of green leaves slammed into his face, making him recoil in surprise. Naruto swung his leg with his bad ankle and clocked the son of Hermes in the back of his knees with his shin, sending the demigod sprawling and making the flag clatter out of his hands away from him.

Luke rolled over so he was on his back, his sword already swinging. Naruto saw it coming and slammed his foot on Luke's wrist, pinning it to the ground, and grimacing when he was forced to put weight on his injury. The part of Luke's expression that Naruto could see was weird; it was like a mix of mirth, excitement, and annoyance.

"Sorry, Castellan." Naruto grinned down at Luke, flipping his sword around so he was holding it in a reverse grip. "But a forest is my kind of arena." With that said, Naruto brought the butt end of his weapon down onto Luke's helmet, causing a resounding clang to run through the area from the impact.

He took a few steps away from the other demigod's unconscious body and huffed out a breath through his nose. Naruto was about to walk (or limp) over and grab the flag, but he paused when a small and slightly-tanned hand grabbed onto the shaft of it.

"You alright?" Definitely Silena's voice. She leaned back up, flag in hand. She was sweating, her face was flushed red and she seemed out of breath, but otherwise A-okay.

"Yeah, I'm fine." The pain in his ankle had dimmed down into more of a dull and manageable throb by now. He debated on asking her about how she'd taken out two campers from the Apollo cabin, but decided against it, that could wait for later; right now they had a game to win. "I need to get their flag."

Silena breathed through her nose and her lips formed a firm line. "I won't be able to defend the flag on my own from another attack."

"Maybe, maybe not. That depends on you." He smiled blandly. "But if we're going to win this then someone needs to get the blue flag."

"What about the others?"

"Losing." Well, that had been what the trees had told him last anyway, and they hadn't said anything since so he assumed nothing had changed. "I mean, I don't mean to sound lik-"

"It's fine." Silena interrupted. "Just go. I'll take the flag back." A ghost of a smile spread across her face. "Besides, someone has to play defense, right?"

"Uh, yeah."

As he ran towards the south part of the forest—the base of the blue team—he noticed that while the trees continued to move around and leave him space, they were silent. Well, they weren't _silent_ silent, the sound of rustling leaves and branches was still there, but they weren't speaking to him. He took that as a good sign though, as if they were speaking to him, then it'd probably be bad news.

The sound of weapons clanging wasn't nearly as loud or constant as it once was. There was a few here and there, but it was mostly just campers cheering.

Naruto followed the noise. He had no clue where the blue team's flag was, so the first thing he needed to was to find out where it was. And he knew only one way to do that.

Ask nicely.

Naruto kept running, huffing his breath out through his nose, until he came to an abrupt stop when a tree branch with a dozen apples on it suddenly appeared in his view, causing him to almost ram straight through it. He gave the apples a weird look, only for someone to shout out: "Get them!"

In the corner of his eyes, something gleamed as it shot out of his sight, only to be followed by numerous more. Someone in the direction the gleams had went in shouted out profanities, and Naruto shook his head; those were definitely the words of an Ares camper.

Without wasting anymore time, Naruto ran straight towards where the gleams—which were probably arrows—had came from. He weaved in and out of a few trees that were close together, heard a cry of "Bastard!", rounded another thick tree and came face-to-face with a blond-haired, blue-eyed male with a bow in his hand and an arrow nocked.

That was all Naruto registered before he slammed his dented shield into the camper, hitting his arms first and chest second, sending the blue to the ground on his back.

The camper grunted and rolled to the side, grabbing his bow that had tumbled and nocking another arrow, firing the projectile off at a lightning-fast pace as soon as he'd gotten into a crouched position.

Naruto swung his shield, batting the arrow away and sending it somewhere off to the side.

The camper reached for another arrow in his quiver, but paused when Naruto tensed and got ready to clear the small distance between them.

It was a stalemate, and Naruto was at a clear disadvantage. Sure, the distance wasn't all that far, something he could make in a couple of leaps, but all the blue had to do was nock an arrow then let it fly and Naruto was pretty much a goner. He really didn't think he had the reflexes to dodge something as quick as an arrow with the very little time there would be.

He pursed his lips. "So... uh, nice nigh-"

Naruto was cut off mid-sentence when loud shouts and cheers erupted not very far away, followed by metal clanging against metal.

The camper made the mistake of glancing in the direction it had came from, and Naruto used it to his advantage—it was a war game, so he had to do that, right? He'd make sure to tell Luke later just to rub it in.

He lurched forward, clearing the distance between them in just a couple of bounds. The camper's eyes widened and his hand grabbed onto an arrow, but he was already too late.

Naruto grabbed a hold of the camper's bow, barreled past him, and yanked as hard as he could, forcing the ranged weapon out of the camper's hands and making him hit the ground flat on his face.

He groaned. "Second damn time."

Naruto threw the bow up above into the branches above, hearing it clatter around until it got stuck. He looked down at the camper that was slowly picking himself up. He couldn't allow that, so he stabbed his sword into the ground right next to the camper's head as a warning, making him freeze. "Can you tell me where your flag is?"

"A-ah..." The camper mumbled. He looked pretty awkward in the half-push up position he was in, so Naruto decided it was an awesome idea to let him lay down. He let go of his sword's hilt and bonked the blue on the head, not hard enough to send his face crashing into the dirt, but hard enough to rattle the other demigod's helmet around and force him to lose his balance from surprise.

Naruto chuckled. "That was actually kinda funny."

The camper lifted his head, his blue eyes blazing in anger. "You son of a-"

"Flag." Naruto interrupted. "Where's the flag?" The camper scowled and snapped his mouth shut, twisting it almost like he didn't plan on opening it ever again. Naruto frowned. "There's no killing or maiming in Capture the Flag, but you do remember that I can sure as hell hurt you, right?"

The camper grimaced, his whole body shuddering. He grumbled something about Ares and his kids, before reluctantly looking back at Naruto, gritting his teeth in annoyance. "It's that way." He lifted his arm and pointed off into the forest. The direction the guy had gestured to was right below where the moon was shining in all its glory.

"That answer sucked."

"Well what'd you expect?!" The camper snapped, scowling once more. "It's literally that way. If you don't change directions, then you'll get to the flag. Gods, I thought that Demeter's children were pretty smar-"

This time Naruto sent his face crashing into the dirt. "Thanks for your help."

He began to run in the direction the blue team member had pointed, doing his best to ignore the demigod's shout of: "Gah! That's it! Next time I see you, you're getting an arrow where the sun don't shine! And I should know where the sun shines, my father is the God of the Sun!"

Well, that explained the bow the camper had at least.

Naruto didn't come across anymore blues on his journey. He zigzagged through the randomly placed trees; wind whipping at his face, and adrenaline coursing through his veins. He sprinted for what was probably twenty minutes, not once breaking his stride nor feeling any exhaustion, until finally the trees around him shook. They didn't say anything, but he took it as a clear sign that he was close to the flag and slowed down into a light jog.

A high-pitched whistle ripped through the air and Naruto saw something bronze whiz by just a few inches in front of his face. He ducked and rolled, stopping behind a tree and looking around it to try and see who had fired whatever it had been. Another whistle sounded out and Naruto moved his head out of the way, catching a glimpse of an arrow flying by.

_'Great.'_ He thought. _'Another one of Apollo's kids.'_

Couldn't he catch a break? What was with all the archers that he had to deal with? Why couldn't he take on one of Athena's children? Sure, they were more brain than brawn, but at least there'd be some gods damned diversity!

He breathed in and huffed it out through his nose. Chiron had said both teams were only allowed to have two people defending their flag; one of them was obviously form the Apollo cabin, but who was the other one?

"Come out and surrender, Naruto."

Naruto poked his head around the tree again. There he saw one of Athena's demigods—Malcolm. The camper stood in full battle armour, his shield was strapped to his left arm and he had a sword sheathed at his side, either he didn't want to show any hostile intentions or he was that confident. Naruto didn't know him on a personal level, but he'd spoken to him a few times in passing.

Naruto scowled, more annoyed at himself than anything; he just _had_ to complain about not seeing any of Athena's children, didn't he?

He debated on whether or not he should move out of his spot. If he did the he might be able to get the jump on Malcolm and then rush to wherever the archer was, though that plan had a major flaw: he'd probably get hit by an arrow before he got anywhere close.

What else could he do though? He was outnumbered two to one with one of the blues ready to let loose an arrow the moment he made a move. Maybe the trees could throw the blue from the Apollo cabin around a bit, but he didn't know how much they were capable of doing to an alert demigod.

In the end he decided to go with his first idea. He couldn't waste time standing around and doing nothing, he had to do _something_, and if that meant taking an arrow to the knee then so be it.

His sword morphed back into his iPhone and he walked out from behind the tree towards Malcolm. His eyes darted around the tree line, looking for either the other demigod or a sign that would tell him where he was. Almost completely out of his sight, one single tree swayed eagerly. He panicked slightly and wondered if Malcolm or the other blue had noticed, but nothing happened, and Malcolm's calm expression didn't even twitch.

"So, uh..." Naruto started in an attempt to start a conversation. "What's with all this surrendering stuff?" He kind of felt like slamming his head against a tree, maybe it'd help him come up with better conversation starters.

Malcolm shrugged lightly, his index finger twitching ever so slightly. "No resistance means no chance of losing."

Well, Naruto supposed that was true, but he was planning on resisting. As soon as he got within a meter of Malcolm, the trees shook in a frenzy, another whistle broke through the air and Naruto only just had enough time to raise his shield, letting the arrow clang against it. When he lowered his shield, he saw Malcolm directly in front of him and his face ended up being rudely introduced to his shield.

Naruto stumbled back, his hand reflexively grasping onto his nose as he drew in gasps of air. Apparently broken noses didn't count as maiming, not that he would argue it, he'd broken the damn thing—as well as other bones—plenty of times before he'd arrived at the camp. Strangely enough though, whatever had been broken had always been fully healed by the next day; weird, right?

Ah. He was letting his mind wander again.

"Damn it!" Naruto bit out, sounding nasally even to himself. His vision had gone blurry and he tried to blink himself out of it, but it didn't do much good; Malcolm still looked like a smudged painting.

The bronze blur that he guessed was Malcolm moved and Naruto fell flat on his back, grunting from surprise. Something came dangerously close to his eyes and he squinted, trying to get a better look at it. He couldn't make out much, except that it looked like it could poke a few holes in his body without much resistance.

"Game over, Naruto." Malcolm said.

His vision had began to slowly clear up, but it wasn't nearly enough for him to be able to see clearly. Naruto ground his teeth together in frustration, he had _not_ just went from one end of the forest to the other just to get beaten so easily and quickly.

He felt angry—really angry. But it wasn't anger at Malcolm or whoever the archer was, it was anger at himself. Why was he so... _weak?!_ He had barely survived before getting to camp, he hadn't been able to stop whatever had happened to Percy's mom, gods he hadn't even been able to think about that dream he'd had without feeling scared. And now, just to add to the list, he couldn't even capture a single flag despite all the help the trees were providing him with!

All around him and Malcolm, the trees shook, not in the way they would when they were revealing someone's position, but like they were just as angry as he was, _Get up!_

Naruto reflexively clicked the Home button on his iPhone, swinging his weapon at Malcolm's own blade before it had even fully transformed. The blade had only just extended itself when it clashed against Athena's son's sword, getting sparks to fly out.

Malcolm flicked his sword away and went to stand on his wrist to keep him down but Naruto grabbed his ankle, immediately yanking it towards him and bringing the other demigod on top of him in a small pile. Okay, yeah, really not one of his best ideas.

He used Malcom's apparent surprise and flipped them over so he was on top before lashing out and sending his fist straight into Malcolm's face. Well, he had thought it was his face, but he'd kinda forgotten that Athena's son had a helmet on and his fist hit it with a resounding _CLUNK!_

Naruto leaned back up, staring at his hand that had become numb with pain already. "That... hurt." His pause had been a bad mistake on his part as Malcolm used it to kick him in the chest and send him sprawling onto his back. Another whistle reached his ears, signalling another arrow being fired, but it was soon stopped when a thick tree branch got in its way.

Naruto didn't waste anymore time. He'd only managed to make mistakes in this fight, and now it was time for him to actually make some progress, so he charged straight at Malcolm who had only just stood back up.

When he was close enough, Naruto reared his arm back before bringing it forward, slashing at Malcolm. The other demigod raised his shield and blocked it, letting the bronze weapon clang uselessly, but Naruto wasn't done yet. He kept slicing and stabbing, not letting Malcolm even get a chance to retaliate. With every swing of his sword Naruto felt a bit of his anger and frustration leave him, so it was just more incentive for him to keep attacking.

Malcolm grunted; he tried to make a jab at Naruto with his sword, but the other blond saw it and slammed the edge of his shield into the flat side of the weapon so hard that it was sent clattering away. Athena's son was tiring slowly, the minor cuts and slashes along his limbs and the one much longer one on his upper thigh were really beginning to get to him.

Malcolm began to backpedal, his grey eyes flickering and studying every movement Naruto made. He ducked under a swing of Naruto's sword and kicked out at his legs, but Naruto saw what he was doing and slammed his foot onto the offending limb before lurching forward and slamming his shield into Malcolm's helmet as hard as he could, going for a knockout.

There was a rather loud _T__HUNK_ as shield met helmet. Naruto breathed deeply as the other demigod's body fell against the ground, unconscious and unmoving.

He stood there for a good fifteen seconds or so, just gathering his wits, only to be brought straight back into reality when a feminine yelp reached his ears, followed by a few thunks like something was slamming into wood, until there was a groan and a whole lot of curses about trees.

Naruto debated on whether or not he should check it out, but decided to get the flag first. It was impaled in the ground in a small clearing, similar to the one that housed the red team's flag but different—it wasn't as large, but there was shrubbery around and much more flora.

He grabbed the flag pole, grinning slightly, before turning around and running towards where he had heard the noise just before. When he arrived, he supposed that there was another thing he could add to his list of what he didn't know how to feel about.

There, hung upside down by the tree branches wrapped around her ankles, was the blue team's archer. Her helmet was on the ground below her, obviously having fallen off, and it caused her medium-length blonde hair to just hang around. She kept struggling, wiggling around and trying to get out of her predicament. It took her a few seconds, but she finally noticed him and frowned. "Are you just going to stand there or help me get down?"

"Neither." His small grin grew a bit, and he couldn't help but notice his mood had began to go up ever since he'd gotten a hold of the flag. "I've got a game to win, maybe they'll let you down when it's finished."

The dead-sprint back to his base wasn't very interesting. He made his way around a few battles—both minor and major—but other than that it was just him and the amazing trees around him.

Naruto supposed he was around midway through the forest before he realised something. How were the teams going to know the match was over when he returned the flag? It'd be kind of awkward to get the flag there while the two sides just kept fighting each other.

He bit the inside of his cheek, mulling it over, before remembering what Mark had given him—the flare. He fumbled with the flag and his sword until he had a free hand, using it to dig into his pocket and retrieve his item of desire. He put the cap in his mouth and popped it off, spiting it out seconds later before closing his eyes and doing the same with the tab on the inside.

As soon as the tab had been ripped out, Naruto jerked his head backwards as he felt hot smoke slam into his face accompanied by a hissing noise. Coughing and stumbling, he opened his eyes to see the flare billowing out so much red smoke that it would be visible from a mile away.

"So that's what it does." He muttered, making a mental note to never open a flare with his mouth ever again.

He held the flare high above his head in his right hand, while his left held the flag and his sword. Okay, maybe popping the flare before he had actually one wasn't the best idea, but in his defense he hadn't actually known what it did.

A couple minutes later, the roar of campers sounded behind him, and he picked up the pace; he didn't know whether it was his team or not, but he didn't want to take the risk.

The sounds of the campers kept getting louder and louder until Naruto burst out of the forest straight into the clearing. His eyes locked onto the red flag planted in the middle and he raced straight for it; his heart was racing, and his breathing was heavier from excitement.

In the back of his head, he worried that something would happen—something would get in the way. Still, he kept running, moving as fast as his legs would allow him. It turned out his worry had been for nothing, because he reached the red flag without any problems and slammed the blue flag into the ground right next to it.

Naruto stared at the flag for a bit, not really knowing whether to believe he'd actually just won the game. He blinked, the air was still and calm, and the trees didn't make even the slightest movement.

It only lasted a few seconds though before Naruto heard a massive boom of cheers and whoops from behind him, and he felt a small grin tug at his lips. Looking behind him, he saw most—if not all—of the campers that participated in the game standing at the tree line; the blues were either glaring or giving him annoyed looks, while his own team couldn't have looked happier.

Naruto raised his sword into the air, causing the cheers of his team to escalate, and shouted out: "WE WON!"

* * *

**Chapter 3 done!**

**"We won!" Is what my friends and I shouted out when we won a game against an organised and great team in Halo 4.**

**So! First chapter for 2014. It took a while to finish, but I have valid excuses for that: New Years, girlfriend broke her leg, and then there's the amazingness(not even a word) of video games. So yeah, I pretty much procrastinated and have truthful but un****satisfying excuses, right?**

**Next one: _Naruto_ characters. I probably should have stated this beforehand, but whatever, I'll do it now. Any _Naruto_ characters I bring in will be for antagonistic purposes, and if I ever do bring in any _Naruto_ characters to help the "good guys" it'll only be temporary and they won't get much text about them.**

**Next: Pairing. Another thing I should have stated previously. While Calypso and Annabeth are my top two choices right now, they're not the only ones; I want to keep my options as open as possible.**

**Next: Dream. This _does_ tie into the plot, but for right now and the near future it's for Naruto and his character ****development.**

**And that's it.**


	4. He doesn't get a prophecy, but he does

Son of Demeter Chapter 4

Disclaimers suck grape-like, watermelony apples.

* * *

Naruto felt euphoric.

His team had ran up to him and he soon found himself hauled up onto the shoulders of Mark and another kid from the Ares cabin. He was surrounded by a bunch of cheering teens, grinning and slapping hands with anyone and everyone he could see. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see the grey banner on the flag pole flicker until it was a light brown, and the owl changed into a sheaf of wheat.

The demigods on the blue team that he could recognize looked pretty much the opposite of how he felt—not that he cared all that much.

Chiron cantered into the clearing as a centaur and blew the conch horn, signalling the end of the game.

The trees around them shook, and Naruto turned his grin towards them, but it dimmed when he heard what they were saying, _Trouble._

Almost as soon as the trees had spoken, an ear-piercing howl ripped through the air, and the campers' cheering instantly died.

Naruto looked over into the forest where it had came from along with everyone else. An eerie silence overcame them; Chiron was tense and held his bow, Clarisse, Mark—who was still holding him up—as well as the rest of the Ares cabin looked ready to kill, Katie looked wary, and everyone from the Athena cabin was giving the direction a look that made him think they were already thinking up plans for defense.

A few more seconds of silence passed before it was broken by a grunt, followed by someone with a blue plume on top of their helmet stumbled out of the trees and into the clearing. The guy had a sword held loosely in his hand and looked pretty much dead on his feet, like if someone gave him a small nudge he'd keel over.

Clarisse gave him a death glare like she wanted to start ripping him apart limb from limb.

Before anything could be said, a rumbling growl that Naruto recognized came from behind the blue team's exhausted demigod, making him flinch and lurch forward into the clearing before landing flat on his face.

No one made a noise. Chiron nocked an arrow.

Right where the guy had stumbled out from, a giant, rhino-sized dog exactly like the one Naruto had encountered leaped out straight for the downed demigod.

Naruto's eyes widened in shock. He made a move to jump towards the monster and the one it was aiming for, but he was still being held up on Mark and his sibling's shoulders so he only managed to fumble and begin a descent towards the ground.

Just before impact, he saw Chiron's eyes narrow and his jaw clench before he released his arrow, soon followed by more and more arrows, peppering the monster.

Naruto slammed into the ground, grunted, mentally called himself a complete idiot, and got back up as fast as he could. By that time, most of his team had already began running towards where the monster had landed; around a meter away from the downed demigod.

Naruto grabbed Katie's wrist and ran to the guy, moving around his team and sliding to a stop, releasing his sister's wrist, ignoring her grumble at being dragged and knelt down beside the downed blue.

The demigod's eyes were half-closed with exhaustion and Naruto recognised them—only one person he knew had sea green eyes like that after all. Naruto grabbed Percy's helmet and pulled it off, throwing it away in a random direction seconds later.

Percy's face was matted with sweat, his face was pale and he was breathing in short gasps of air like he'd just been introduced to oxygen.

Despite what was in front of him, Naruto felt the question roll off his tongue almost immediately. "You alright?"

Percy grunted. His breathing slowed down, becoming more calm, and he coughed. "Fantastic." He tried to sit up, but his hands slipped form underneath him and Naruto put his hand behind Percy's back to keep him steady.

"Yeah." Naruto remarked dryly. "I can tell."

Percy huffed through his nose and got stable while Naruto's hands went back to where they had been.

Naruto looked around and saw everyone who had played the Capture the Flag game was surrounding them, but they were looking at the monster that had melted into shadow, sinking into the ground—what was it called? A hellhound.

"How'd it get in here?" Annabeth asked as she fiddled with a baseball cap. "It's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment, it's not supposed to be able to get here."

"Someone summoned it." Chiron's arms were crossed and he had a stern expression. "Someone in the camp."

Why would someone summon a hellhound into the camp? That was the first thing that ran through Naruto's mind. What would be the purpose of that?

"Percy summoned it!" Clarisse snapped, glaring down at the accused demigod. Naruto didn't know why she was so pissy, but it was either because of how Percy had embarrassed her what with the whole bathroom incident, or it was because she had encountered Percy and lost. "He knew he was going to lose, so he wanted to bring more attention to himself!"

"Oh, I'm sure." Annabeth snorted almost mockingly. "Because _everyone_ wants to put themselves in danger over losing one match."

"He's a sore loser!"

"Enough!" Chiron rubbed his temples in annoyance. "Clarisse, stop putting the blame on Percy." The centaur looked towards the daughter of Athena. "And you, Annabeth, don't goad Clarisse."

Clarisse grunted and Annabeth harrumphed, both looking away from the other. Chiron shook his head.

"Hey, look." Naruto followed where Mark was gesturing and saw something begin to glow a green light above Percy's head. "Kid's getting claimed."

From the green light, the bottom of a spear began to materialize, followed by the shaft and ended with three prongs at the top—a trident.

"No way..." A random camper murmured.

Chiron took a step forward. "You have been claimed by your father, Percy Jackson." At his words, the demigods around them kneeled and Chiron himself bowed his head slightly.

"My father?" Percy questioned.

"Poseidon." Chiron confirmed. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God."

Percy looked at everyone blankly for a few moments before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell backwards onto the ground with a loud thump, the exhaustion apparently getting to him.

Naruto scratched at the back of his head awkwardly. "Uh, will a bottle of water help here?"

The demigods all began to stand and Mark snorted. "We could always just throw him into the creek, see if that does anything."

* * *

"Hey, Naruto. Wake up."

He groaned and rolled over, lazily swatting his hand in the direction the voice had came from. He thought about saying _No_, but decided against it and just sunk more into his bed, trying to go back to sleep.

Whoever was trying to wake him up sighed, grumbled about having to do what they were doing, and ripped his blankets away from him.

Naruto's eyes snapped open from the sudden loss of warmth and he sat up, glaring at his sister who glared straight back. "What was that for?!" He gritted out quietly, noting his still sleeping siblings.

Katie's jaw clenched in annoyance. "You weren't waking up!" She jabbed a finger towards the analog clock hung up on the wall. "It's six in the morning, Naruto."

Six—a time way too early to be awake, in his opinion. But Katie thought otherwise and wanted him along with the rest of the cabin up by that time. Looking her over, he saw that she'd showered, dressed, and looked ready for the day.

Just great.

He made a quick grab for his blankets, but Katie pulled them out of his reach. His shoulders slumped and he grumbled: "Such a mean sister."

"Stop pouting." She gestured over to the door that led to the bathroom. "Now hurry up."

Naruto scrunched up his nose, got out of bed and half-walked, half-stumbled over to the door before going inside. Naruto would admit, he actually enjoyed having showers, though that probably had to do with him not being able to keep up his hygiene before he'd gotten to the camp.

Once he'd finished and gotten dressed, he walked out of the bathroom, rolling his eyes when he saw Katie giving his siblings a stern look as they grumbled and woke up.

The only sister he had with the exception of Katie was the first to spot him. Her eyes glinted as she launched herself out of her bed, bounding past him and into the bathroom with a smile.

His two brothers—Ryan and Jake—noticed. They both sighed simultaneously before snapping their heads to the side and glaring at the other.

Naruto shook his head and made his way over to his bed—those two always did the same thing, and they hated it with a burning passion. He sat down on the edge and got ready to watch what had basically become a routine.

Katie frowned. "Stop that." She said. "Just get up and get ready."

The two locked eyes with her and waved their arms in the direction of the bathroom exasperatedly. "April's there though!"

Naruto's lips curled into a grin when the two scowled at each other, looking like they wanted nothing more than to beat the other into unconsciousness. Naruto doubted they'd go that far—his siblings weren't all that violent—but it was still amusing.

"I said stop it!" Katie huffed. "And showering isn't the only thing you can do to get ready. Make your bed. Get your clothes set out." She gave them both the evil eye. "_Now._"

His two brothers looked at him with pleading eyes. Naruto just shrugged and smiled, showing that he wasn't going to be doing a thing to help them. Their heads dropped in defeat before they set to work on what Katie had told them to do, both mumbling about demanding sisters and unhelpful brothers.

Naruto had left not long after April had gotten out of the shower and went to the pavilion, hungry and wanting his fill of breakfast. He could have waited for his siblings to get ready, but he knew he'd just end up going insane if he had to sit there and do nothing.

The early morning sun was barely peeking over the horizon, giving the camp a nice, orange glow to it. The camp itself was mostly silent, though Naruto didn't really expect anyone to be up and making noise at the hellish time Katie woke everyone in the cabin up at.

The pavilion was pretty much empty when he got there, save for a few dryads walking around and cleaning up any left over mess from the night before. Almost as soon as he'd sat down at the Demeter table, he felt a tap on his shoulder and he turned his head to see a dryad smiling at him while she put a bowl and a spoon in front of him. "Good morning."

"Mornin'." Naruto licked his lips and picked up his spoon, looking down at the cereal and Oreos with a desire to devour. Before he dug in though, he glanced back up at the dryad who had made a move to walk away. "Hey, wait." When she paused and looked back at him, he continued. "What's your name?"

He really wasn't good with talking to people, he'd admit it, so he just went with questions that were blunt and to the point.

Her cheeks tinted green and she smiled slightly. "Juniper." She introduced. "My name's Juniper."

"Juniper? As in the juniper tree?"

She nodded. "That's what I live inside of."

Ah, right—dryads lived in trees, their life forces connected to them.

"Well thanks for the breakfast, Juniper."

She just smiled and waved him off, almost tripping over on her leave. Why? Naruto had no idea, and he didn't care all that much, he had food to eat—it was his favorite after all. In the back of his mind, he knew there was something else—something infinitely better—but he refused to let that part of him come up.

By the time Katie and the rest of his cabin had arrived he'd already finished three bowls, having been given more by a mildly blushing Juniper. Katie sat down on his right and elbowed his in the ribs with a disapproving frown. "You're destroying the point of cereal by having Oreos in it."

"Oh yeah?" Naruto let the deliciousness slide down his throat. He saw Katie open her mouth and he knew she was going to scold him for talking with food in his mouth, so he decided to talk before she could get a word in—she'd told him before anyway. "Why does it matter? It tastes good."

"How we have the same mother, I don't know." She grumbled. "It matters because cereal is supposed to be healthy, not something to put junk food in." A dryad walked by and planted a bowl filled with Cheerios in front of Katie along with a spoon. "See? Something like this."

Naruto eyed the cereal briefly before shoving a spoon full of his own down his throat and swallowing. "Probably sucks in comparison to mine."

Katie rolled her eyes.

Eight in the morning was _supposed_ to be the time when everyone in the camp had their morning meal. Around twenty minutes after the rest of the Demeter cabin had gotten into the pavilion, the other cabins began showing up—Hermes, Apollo, Athena, Hephaestus, Dionysus, Ares, Aphrodite, followed by the one, lone camper that belonged to the Poseidon cabin. Save for the kids in the Hephaestus cabin (who looked like they hadn't even slept and were still riding a caffeine high), the campers all walked in with a drowsy and grumpy air about them.

Despite them not looking like they could even make a coherent sentence, loud chatter soon filled the pavilion.

Naruto frowned, feeling a bit jealous. "Why can't we do that?" He looked to his sister. "Why do we have to get up so early when no one else does?"

Katie ignored him in favor of her Cheerios.

* * *

Naruto frowned at the grinning son of Hermes in front of him. It was just after eleven at night, and by this time the majority of the campers were either sleeping or going to sleep, yet here Luke was, standing out the front of his cabin. "What do you want? And why are you here now? Isn't there supposed to be harpies flying around?"

Luke rolled his eyes. "In that order." He said. "A few other campers and I are going to the beach. I'm here now because we're going now. And there's no need to worry about the harpies, they're out of order." Luke grinned down at him, a strange, mischievous gleam in his eyes. "So, wanna come?"

The first thing that went through Naruto's head was: _'Katie won't like it.'_ He ducked back into his cabin briefly. His siblings were still asleep; Katie was snoring softly, April was lying on her stomach, and Ryan and Jake's right legs were hanging off the side of their beds. He came back to Luke with a short grin. "Absolutely."

"Great." Luke looked way too giddy for Naruto's liking. "But first go change, you look like you're about to go to sleep."

Naruto looked down at himself—yeah, he definitely wasn't leaving his cabin in nothing more than a pair of boxers and a camp shirt.

After slipping a pair of shorts and his converses on, he followed Luke across the camp, sneaking quietly so they didn't attract the attention of either Dionysus or Chiron. They didn't need to journey all that far—the beach was only beyond the mess hall—and they had managed to creep over there within just under a nice five minutes.

Luke's definition of a few was way off. On the beach, campers sat around talking to each other, and there was even a small group near them spinning a bottle on a piece of tarp. Whenever the bottle stopped and pointed to someone, the one who spun it and the on the bottle landed on leaned over the middle and started kissing, and right now two girls (who looked like they were daughters of Hermes and Apollo) were in a furious lip lock.

Luke chuckled and nudged him. "You're staring."

Naruto forced himself to look away, not knowing whether he wanted the image burned into his brain or not; could sisters read minds?

There wasn't as many teens in the water, but the ones who were in there were either trying to dunk their friends, splashing others with water, or having swimming races. That's when Naruto noticed something; while there was some demigods around his age—probably just a bit over ten or so—the majority looked to be at least sixteen.

Great.

"Well." Luke said, giving him an encouraging pat on the back. "Have fun." He grinned and jogged over to where the bottle was still spinning and sat in between two girls, with one of them shuffling closer to him when he got there.

Naruto stood in the same spot awkwardly. His eyes roamed between the ones conversing, to the ones messing around in the water—he didn't even bother looking back over to Luke; going over there wasn't an option as he'd seem like he was just following the son of Hermes around.

Before he could come to a decision, he heard a semi-familiar voice shout out to him: "Naruto! Over here!"

He glanced over to where the teens who were having a water fight were. There, rubbing water out of his eyes, waving him over and trying to block the splashes directed at him, was Lee Fletcher, one of Apollo's children. Naruto didn't really know him, he only remembered the guy's name because he'd shown everyone else up in archery.

Lee shook his head in an effort to get rid of some water before grinning at him. "Come on, hurry up and join in!"

_'Screw it.'_ Naruto thought. He kicked off his converses and threw his camp shirt down beside them before running into the water, diving when he was deep enough and swimming over. When he came back up for air, he managed to get a quick breath in before he was forced straight back under, someone holding him down with their hands on his head.

He grabbed their wrists and jerked them out of the way, resurfacing and glaring at the assailant through the blond hair that covered the majority of his sight. He heard a snort of laughter, one of the wrists he was holding escaped him, and his hair was moved out of the way.

The first thought that went through Naruto's mind when he noticed who was in front of him was: _'Oh boy.'_

The daughter of Apollo's grin unnerved him, even more so than if she had looked ready to ready to take his weapon and cut him into thousands of pieces with it. "Hey."

"Uh..." Naruto let go of her wrist and put a small amount of space between them and looked her over. Blonde hair that fell below her shoulders, bright blue eyes, slightly tanned skin, and a two-piece bikini from the looks of it. Yep, even with the change of attire, he could tell that it was the same girl he'd left bound by the branches during the CTF game. "Hey..."

As soon as the single word had left his mouth, Naruto felt something slam into his side and send him underwater... again. Once he'd come back up, he locked eyes with Lee who had six others around him—three on either side—all with their arms extended and only a few feet in front of him. Lee rolled his eyes. "Don't look at me like that." He said. "That was just a bit of payback for the game on Friday."

"I'll show you payback." Naruto grumbled before lunging at Apollo's son and tackling him underwater.

Things started to just speed by at that point. On the beach, people had started to go back to their cabins, either getting bored or deciding that it was time to call it a night.

The people in the water had a mini-war—splashing, dunking, picking up others and throwing them into the deeper ends, and at some point someone had lifted a girl onto their shoulders and began to push others over into the water.

Naruto felt some soft and smooth slam down onto his shoulders. He wobbled on the spot before bringing his hands up and steadying whatever had landed on him. When he looked up, he saw a smirking daughter of Apollo resting on his shoulders while his hands were on her thighs, keeping her stable.

He grimaced, she grinned. "Mush!" She lightly hit her heel onto his chest and pointed forwards, gesturing to Lee, whoever was on his shoulders and the pushing contest they were having with another pair.

"Alright, alright."

By the time it was over, Naruto had a satisfied smile on his face, having genuinely enjoyed the time he'd spent. The majority had already left—the beach was nearly empty, and the only ones who were still in the water were Lee and Naruto, just floating on their backs and looking up at the night sky.

They didn't say anything, but that was fine with Naruto. He was content to relax for a minute or so.

A short, yet sharp whistle broke through the silence. "Hey, come on you two! Time to pack it up."

Naruto shifted around so that he was up right and saw Luke on the beach waving over to them. He glanced at Lee who had a challenging glint in his eyes before grinning. Without warning, both demigods dived into the water and swam for the shoreline.

Naruto saw Lee start to get ahead of him and put more effort into his strokes, but for some reason he wasn't going any faster, like the water was keeping him at a certain speed, and it annoyed him to no end.

They hadn't been too far from the shore, so the race was over quickly, with Lee coming out on top. "Maybe next time." He said with a smirk, pulling his shirt over his head.

Naruto grumbled in annoyance as he slipped his own shirt on and grabbed his converses. As soon as he'd leaned back up, a loud, ear-piercing screech resounded through the air: "Campers out of bed! Dinner for hungry harpies!"

Luke's expression drooped, his face paling. He stayed in the same spot for a brief second, before shouting out: "Run! Harpies!"

Whoever was left on the beach—probably just over ten demigods—did exactly that, sprinting as fast as they could back to the cabins.

Naruto snapped his head towards Luke. "Harpies? I thought you said they were out of order!"

"Just come on!" Luke waved him over and began running towards the cabins, Naruto following not far behind.

Naruto huffed out of his nose and scowled at Hermes' son. "Do I need to repeat my question?!"

"No." He glanced at Naruto. He still had that mischievous gleam in his eyes, and it put Naruto on edge more than the harpies did. "I trapped the harpies myself, so I didn't think they'd actually get out."

"Well they found a way."

"Clearly."

Naruto's heart was racing, his breathing was short and rapid, and his eyes scanned the area, looking for any place to take cover if he needed to. He glanced behind him, seeing something fluttering towards them at a fast pace. A harpy.

It didn't take long for the demigods to reach the area where the cabins were, and when they did, they took a breather, resting on the ground as if they were safe.

Naruto stopped. "What are you guys doing?" He jabbed his thumb in the direction he'd been running from. "You all know that there's harpies coming to eat us, right? So come on, stand up, we kinda need to move."

No one stood up to move, though they did look at him. Naruto stayed in his position, staring at them in bewilderment, his thumb still pointing in the direction of the harpies.

In the small crowd, near the Hermes cabin, a demigod snorted as his face broke into a grin, setting off everyone else as they burst into snickers, looking his way like they were aiming it _at_ him.

Feeling a few taps on his shoulder, he turned his head to see a smirking Annabeth. Behind her was her brother Mark, and beside her was Luke with a small, impish grin.

Naruto gave her a weird look. "I have a sudden urge to hide in my cabin."

Luke chuckled, ruffled his hair and Naruto swatted his hand away in annoyance. "That's normal." He said. "It happens when people see you panicking for no reason." His eyes flickered over to where they had ran from before he mused to himself. "It's got to be pretty embarrassing for others to get payback on you in front of other people."

Naruto looked around the cabin area, his mouth opening and closing as he did so, and he finally noticed something. The only people there were the kids that belonged to three specific cabins—Athena, Apollo and Hermes; otherwise known as the cabins that made up the blue team from Friday's CTF game.

"Ah." His shoulders dropped. They were still quietly laughing at him, and he felt like caving in on himself. Maybe he could deal with something else that way.

After a few more seconds, a new feeling emerged inside of him—the need for revenge. He was going to give every single person some form of payback. Especially Luke, he was the main one responsible in his eyes.

* * *

It had been a few days since he'd been claimed by his father—Poseidon—and Percy had been having a rubbish time in those days. The majority of the campers—save a few—treated him as if he wasn't there, Annabeth scowled at him whenever he tried to talk to her, he'd seen an article in the newspaper the day before and found that he was wanted by the police, and just to add to it, he was being accused of stealing Zeus' symbol of power—the master bolt.

He'd been having dreams, too—a battle between a horse and an eagle, something he _really_ didn't want to happen.

Earlier, Grover had come to get him from cabin three as Dionysus had wanted to see him. After Dionysus had bluntly said that he'd prefer to make him spontaneously combust—or even turn him into a bottlenose dolphin—he'd spoken to Chiron, and the centaur had told him to consult the Oracle, with Grover adding in side comments about a quest; and that's why he was here now, standing in an attic with a human female body that was shriveled into a husk sitting on a wooden tripod stool.

She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.

Just looking at her sent chills up Percy's back.

He stood there for a few seconds, his eyes roaming over all the old, Greek hero junk, and that's when she stood up, green mist spewing from her mouth. It coiled over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes.

Percy stumbled back over to the trapdoor he'd come to the attic in, but it slammed shut. Inside his head, he heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around his brain:_ I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask._

Percy wanted to make an excuse to leave—maybe he could say he found the wrong room—but he forced himself to take a deep breath, gathering what little courage he could. "What is my destiny?"

Nothing happened.

He gulped, feeling his courage slowly leaving him. What was he supposed to do now? The mist still rolled around the floor, hissing, and making Percy think that it was going to just absorb him if he didn't hurry up.

He cringed—that wasn't a good thought. "Uh, where's the master bolt?" Nothing. "What do I need to do?" Still nothing. Percy grimaced. "What do I need to know about a quest?"

Bingo! Third time's the charm. Well, it was his fourth overall, but his third in his round of rapid fire questions, so it still counted.

The mist swirled and collected in front of him, gathering around a table with pickled monster-part jars on it. Soon, the table was replaced with a mist-created couch. Two human forms began to swirl together on top of it, one of them was seated normally while the other had their legs kicked up, resting on the first figure's legs.

The detail came next, and Percy felt his blood run cold when the first figure's face become the one of his mother, taking on every single one of her features like she was really there. The second became the one of Smelly Gabe, and he clenched his fists, gritting his teeth at how close the two looked.

Gabe crossed his ankles over, breathing in on the cigar in his mouth. When he spoke, it wasn't his voice, but the Oracle's:

_Four shall go west, and face the god who has turned,_

_Yet not before an encounter with the one who has learned._

_Memories return for neither good nor evil,_

_Enemies succeed and force a __retrieval._

_A former friend is cremated,_

_And lightning is reinstated._

* * *

**Chapter 4 done!**

**A few things I need to get out of the way; "i thought that the whole purpose of Naruto being son of Demeter was to give him Hashirama-ish powers" (part of a review from DarkPirateKing69, using it as an example as it fits perfectly). Giving Naruto "Hasirama-ish" powers _is_ the point of him being Demeter's son. It's always been the point. It was never not the point. Those powers will be used much more as the story goes on.**

**Next would be the prophecy; this is where my story begins to deviate from the canon much more heavily. I'm not saying that I'm throwing canon out the window, because I'm not, but I don't want to write what I've already read, and I'm sure that no one wants to read the same thing over and over again. Also, the reason Percy had to keep guessing what to ask was because the quest isn't specifically for him like it was in the books.**

**I'm not really sure as to how to write this in a cool way, so I'm just going to say it outright: Naruto's still from the Elemental Nations. He still has chakra, still a jinchuriki and whatnot. Why am I stating this? Well, I personally am not a fan of fafics that have the protagonist have completely different roots, and so I want others to know.**

**On a completely unrelated note, I'm starting my last year in high school tomorrow, so I need to try and make myself go to sleep at 1AM the latest. :/**

**Make sure to leave a review, they really are appreciated!**


End file.
